Voyeuristic Pleasure?

Does allowing yourself to be displayed in a film or a photograph mean that you are also thus exposing yourself to voyeurism? This chapter described the camera as a tool of power, because it allows the viewer to see without being seen.

There's a song by Duncan Sheik called "Magazines."
Here's a snippet of the audio and here are the lyrics to go with it:

I wondered if I would be punished for
my voyeuristic pleasure

Now I know
and you're in magazines

When I first heard it a few years ago, I thought, "Oh, that's an interesting song. I wonder what voyeuristic means." Then I looked it up (you can find the definition in Chapter 3 of our book, as well). I didn't like the song very much any more.

But on a less extreme level, aren't images all slightly voyeuristic?

Let's talk Facebook.

Until my Freshman year of college, I refused to get a myspace or facebook account. I felt that they dumbed down communication, wasted countless hours of my hopelessly addicted friends, and exposed everyone to unwanted stalking. But I cracked under pressure from my roommate and signed up for a Facebook account only a day or so after moving in to my new residence hall. I became par t of this online book of faces (and phone numbers, and drunken pictures, and random information).

With Facebook, as with so many online 'communities,' one can theoretically determine exactly how much information and which pictures are displayed. And then we're free to roam about the rest of the site, looking at everyone else. Without being seen.

We almost develop a false sense of security about it. Unless someone posts a response under a picture, we have no way of knowing who has looked at it. Maybe nobody cares - maybe nobody looks at it. Maybe it's okay to put more interesting information up. If it doesn't seem like anybody's stalking us, then we start to feel safer about revealing ourselves. It's almost the opposite of the panopticon that the book discussed, where the inmates of a prison all behave, because they know they could be being watched by a guard at any moment. On Facebook, we know we're open to being "Facebooked" by others, but it only adds to the dare. And also, the more we post, the more others will post, right?

For one of my jobs, I'm a video technician for the Experiential Learning Center. Part of what that means is I sit behind one-way mirrors and monitor multiple cameras pointed at rooms full of Business students. They can't see me, but I can see them. It's not a secret that they're being taped (and they aren't always). It's not meant to be invasive. It's to help them learn how to give better presentations, and to work together better as a team by watching clips of the exercises they do. In fact, the ELC is a brilliant addition to the Marshall School of Business.

Sometimes, though, the people in the rooms forget that that mirror they're admiring themselves in has a hallway on the other side. They forget that those cameras up near the ceiling are connected to a room full of monitors. Every now and then, we'll be sitting in our control room, doing our tech work, and suddenly we'll see a group show up in one of the rooms and start practicing karaoke. Naturally, they want to see how they look, so they face the mirrors - and the cameras, and we're back there cracking up.

Facebook and my ELC job are obviously not on the same level as the kinds of magazines Duncan Sheik was singing about, but it seems that media has brought to us a more accessible kind of toned-down voyeurism. There's something about being able to see and not be seen that makes us feel powerful...and perhaps a little evil.