Capitalist surveillance society in the context of transformation of public sphere and consent manufacturing: Glopticon

Public sphere, civil society and surveillance are interwoven concepts. Transformation in the shape of communication has affected all these three concepts deeply. Public sphere; which enables negotiation and expression of ideas equally and unconstrainedly and in which status and privileges are ignored; is an indispensable obligation of civil society. Democracy, which was carried out directly in Ancient Greek and Rome, is being performed by the representatives to whom citizens delegate their participation authority in modern democratic societies. Ruling and ruled people are omnipresent where public sphere and civil society concepts are presented together. As a result of this, power relationships emerge. Power should not be thought only as a state power. It is possible to mention about power relationship in a place where two or more people are found. In our age, public sphere is becoming feudal just because of the association constituted by states and capitalist corporations. Civil society who has both right and duty of submitting citizens' proposals and critiques to the state by steering the public sphere is turning into a surveillance society gradually. Surveillance society is gaining its legitimacy with the discourse of "security" which is presented to the citizens consistently. Although security is an acceptable reason for surveillance, it may also be used for different purposes by capitalist corporations. Citizens are being classified and separated in the context of their collected and shared data. As a result of this, their life preferences are being directed by capitalist hegemony. From now on, we are beyond an age in which only panoptic surveillance is being performed. Technology has become the preparer of the radical alteration in the shape of surveillance. As super-panopticon, banopticon, synopticon and omnipticon; who are the global children of local panopticon, are being performed simultaneously; we are obliged to face with glopticon from which it is not possible to hide. Key Words: Public sphere, civil society, surveillance society, panopticon, banopticon, super-panopticon, synopticon, omnipticon, glopticon