UNIVERSIDAD DE MURCIA FACULTAD DE LETRAS Black Mirrors: Discipline and Control in Digital Spaces Espejos Negros: Disciplina y Control en los Espacios Digitales D. José Manuel Sala Díaz 2017 'BLACK MIRRORS: DISCIPLINE AND CONTROL IN DIGITAL SPACES' ‘ESPEJOS NEGROS: DISCIPLINA Y CONTROL EN LOS ESPACIOS DIGITALES’ TESIS DOCTORAL PRESENTADA POR JOSE MANUEL SALA DIAZ DIRIGIDA POR EL DR. DAVID WALTON FACULTAD DE LETRAS 2017 1 2 A mis padres 3 Contents Contents ............................................................................................................... 4 Acknowledgements ............................................................................................. 6 Abstract en Español ............................................................................................. 8 Introduction .......................................................................................................... 9 Theoretical Framework ............................................................................... 11 Summary of the Chapters ............................................................................ 12 Extracto en Español. Extract in Spanish ........................................................... 17 1.The Digital as a Disciplinary Space ............................................................... 27 1.1 Introduction ........................................................................................... 28 1.2 Methodology and Theoretical Framework ........................................... 29 1.3 Before ‘Black Mirror’: Representations of the Digital ........................ 32 1.4 Liam, Bing, Lacie: Digital Spaces Create Disciplined Bodies ............ 40 1.5 Technologies as Mechanisms of Control.............................................. 45 1.6 Surveillance Gadgets ............................................................................. 56 1.7 Control or Discipline? ........................................................................... 65 1.8 Social Networks as Places Based on the Simulacra Space .................. 67 1.9 The Concept of the Plague and the Abnormal...................................... 71 1.10 New Tactics of Resistance .................................................................. 77 1.11 The Consequences of the Discipline and Self-surveillance Spaces ... 81 2.The Digital as a Spectacle of Punishment ...................................................... 84 2.1 Introduction ........................................................................................... 85 2.2 The Spectacle and The Digital .............................................................. 86 2.3 Audience as Passive Consumer of Spectacles ...................................... 90 2.4 Audience as a Punisher ......................................................................... 96 2.5 Audience as an Agent of Control ........................................................ 109 2.6 Audience as a Virtual Troll ................................................................. 117 2.7 Audiences that Transform the Spectacle into a Revolution ............... 126 3.Beyond the Panopticon? Artificial Intelligences, Dystopias and Heterotopias138 3.1 Introduction ......................................................................................... 139 3.2Theoretical Framework: Posthumanism, Transhumanism Control .... 140 3.3 The Digital as a Space of Imprisonment............................................. 142 3.4 Digital against Control ........................................................................ 151 3.5‘Be Right Back’ and Non-Places ......................................................... 156 3.6 Her and the Boundaries of Love in the Digital Space ........................ 167 3.7 Utopias, Dystopias, Heterotopias in the Digital Spaces ..................... 173 4. Conclusions .................................................................................................. 192 5.List of Figures ............................................................................................... 197 6.Bibliography ................................................................................................. 207 4 5 Acknowledgements Too many people, too many voices have inspired me, advised me, corrected me and guided me throughout all these years of writing my doctoral thesis. Firstly, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Doctor David Walton for his continuous support of my Ph.D study and related research, for his patience, motivation, and immense knowledge. There is not enough space here to thank his great efforts and wise comments. His guidance helped me at every stage of the research and writing of this thesis. My sincere thanks also go to all the members of the staff of the British Library in London and all the libraries of the different colleges and universities I visited. Without their precious support it would not have beeen possible to conduct this research. Thanks also to all the members of the Modern Languages Department at International House London. Thanks to all of you, who were there for me even if I cannot remember you right now. Thanks for the sleepless nights before deadlines, and for all the fun. There is fun in the suffering and anxiety, believe me. Sometimes we do forget about that. I hope all the mistakes made, all the questions answered still give me the time and energy to keep improving. Last, but not the least, I would like to thank my family: my parents for supporting me throughout the writing this thesis. Thanks to Lorena, who was always there these months. Gracias a todos. 6 Abstract The purpose of this study is to determine the importance of Foucault’s Discipline and Punish (1977) and the representation of the digital in the latest movies and TV Shows, specially focusing on the series Black Mirror. I examine how these discipline societies are represented and I pay attention to how social media created disciplined bodies. My main aim is to portray how the mechanisms of social networks can be understood as agents of control. I also examine if there is a new way to understand the Benthamite notion of the Panopticon in the light of the new digital tools and I discuss the ideas of the utopian, dystopian and heterotopias in different films and media, pointing out the ambiguous message about control that are represented in them. Key terms: series, tv, digitalism, discipline, punish, control, simulacra, culture, black mirror, media, spaces. 7 Abstract en Español El propósito de este estudio es determinar la importancia de la obra de Michael Foucault, Disciplina y Castigo, y la representación de lo digital en las ‘últimas series de televisión y películas, prestando especial atención a la serie Black Mirror. Examino como estas sociedades de disciplina son representadas, sobre todo a la idea de cómo las diferentes redes sociales creando individuos disciplinados. Mi principal objetivo es reflejar cómo los mecanismos de las redes sociales pueden ser entendidos como agentes de control. También examino si hay una nueva manera de entender la noción del Panóptico en relación con las nuevas herramientas digitales. También hablo sobre las ideas de utopía, distopía y las hetereotopías en diferentes películas y series, señalando el ambiguo mensaje que representan en ellas. 8 Introduction It cannot be ignored: for the last ten years, television series have become the best immediate form of culture for (unconsciously or not) reflecting the tensions and social changes in current society. Series such as The Wire (2002-2008) or Mad Men (2008-2015) speak to viewers beyond their storylines and their fictions; as a matter of fact, it is possible to claim that it is necessary to analyse television series in order to understand the (dynamic, constantly changing) reality based on spaces and the identities that are attached to them. This is not something new at all. Michel Foucault suggested in his time that ‘a whole history remains to be written of spaces' (‘The Eye of Power’ 205). However, despite the fact that cultural studies scholars have explored the various ways in which discourses about urban spaces and identity have circulated around each other, little attention has been paid to the idea of how urban spaces are (or can be) represented in television series. One of the most controversial and yet thrilling developments defining this century is digital space. In Neuromancer (1984), science-fiction author William Gibson (who appropriately baptised “The Web” in the eighties) pointed out, at the time, the emergent culture of the Virtual, describing digital space in a poetic, powerful post- human way as: ‘A consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators, in every nation. A graphic representation of data abstracted from the banks of every computer in the human system. Unthinkable complexity. Lines of 9 light ranged in the non-space of the mind, clusters and constellations of data. Like city lights, receding…’ (67). It has been more than thirty years since Neuromancer was released. Once referred to as the visionary pillar to the cyberpunk genre, now it can be read as a piece of nostalgic science-fiction, along the lines of other cyberpunk novels like Crash (1992) by Neal Stephenson, which thrilled people by presenting the possibilities of a ‘new era’, attempting to anticipate a technological future that seemed imminent and challenging. In the same way space opera promises spaceships traveling through the universe. Was cyberpunk the dead-end for a long