Non-Disciplinary Power and the Network Society

Abstract

This article addresses Foucault's concept of disciplinary power and asks whether it is an adequate concept for describing the power relations emerging as part of recent developments in information technology. In fact, this article will show that some non-disciplinary forms of power are transforming many areas of social life, allowing for the development of new information-based institutions, different sites of resistance to power, and increasing social divisions based around the access to information. Drawing on Foucault's concept of a `diagram of power', this article will propose a diagram based on the network which better describes the power relations at work in modern information technology than do the concepts of discipline or the sovereign.