MICHEL FOUCAULT 1982
If it is accurate that we are the sum of our experiences (the knowledge we encounter), then those in control of our early life experiences have a vast amount of power. In an isolated family, a child’s knowledge is dependant on a small number of people. In a sense the few people ‘fashion’ the child’s identity. The child cannot know anything, but what is communicated / given to them. Discourse joins power and knowledge, the power ensues from our casual acceptance of the “reality with which we are presented” (Foucault).
If our identity is created by the media then our world view is restricted to the perspective of certain, remote, rich individuals (the bourgeoisie); we are made to think that we cannot leave the boundaries of our own knowledge of the ‘world’, the limitations of our own understanding; therefore making those in power more powerful.
For example, by inundating us with the trivial (‘Big Brother’ (Channel 4), ‘X-Factor’ (ITV1), etc) the media limits our perception and our access to knowledge, not allowing us to see a segment on, for example human rights atrocities in Burma and the like.
According to Foucault, truth, morality and meaning are created through discourse. Every age has a dominant group of discursive elements that people live in unconsciously. Change may only happen when a new counter-discursive element begins to receive wide attention through the means of communication.
The Master / Slave relationship equals power. If you are within a particular discourse you will only understand yourself in terms that this discourse allows. In other words, the slave (frequently) believes and conforms to the picture that this discourse draws of him or her. In turn it is important to understand that the master’s sense of free will is just as limited. Any change to this relationship to power requires the possession of the means of communication, of self-representation. So therefore, a discourse is never totally ‘pure’ it will always contain some measure of counter-discursive elements.
Foucault argues that knowledge is a power over others, the power to define others. In his view, knowledge ceases to be liberation and becomes a mode of surveillance, a regulation, a discipline.
An important part of Foucault’s Power / Knowledge is the belief that those who are in power have specialist knowledge. In cases such as these, the production of knowledge and the exercise of administrative power intertwine and each begins to enhance the other. For Foucault, this is a reciprocal, mutually reinforcing relation between the circulation of knowledge and subsequently the control of conduct.
