Thomas Mathiesen – The Viewer Society (1997)

The Viewer SocietyA group of individuals connected by shared institutions, culture, and norms., written by the Norwegian sociologist and criminologist Thomas Mathiesen, presents one of the most influential extensions of Michel Foucault’s panopticism. In an age of accelerating video surveillance, mass media, and digital communication, Mathiesen proposes a shift in perspective: instead of focusing solely on the few who watch the many, we must also consider the reverse direction—the “Synopticon”, where the many watch the few.

From Panoptic to Synoptic Society

Foucault’s concept of the Panopticon—named after Jeremy Bentham’s prison design—describes a form of power in which a few individuals discipline the many through permanent visibility. The central surveillance tower ensures that prisoners internalize control because they feel observed at all times (cf. Foucault 1975).

Mathiesen contrasts this with the Synopticon: a society where many watch few—particularly through television, mass media, and public platforms. Politicians, celebrities, police officers, and delinquents appear on screens, are commented on, judged, and disciplined through the ever-present gaze of the viewer. Visibility thus becomes a new form of control.

This critical perspective on visibility and control builds on Mathiesen’s longstanding opposition to repressive penal systems. In his earlier work The Politics of Abolition (1974), he advocated for the abolition of the prison as a central institution of social control. In The Viewer Society, he expands this critique by examining how not only institutions, but also media and cultural practices contribute to modern disciplinary regimes.

Key Points

Core Arguments

Mathiesen argues that the Panopticon and Synopticon are not opposites but complementary. In modern societies, both mechanisms operate simultaneously: people are monitored and controlled through surveillance (cameras, data, institutional oversight) while also watching others—on talk shows, in news programs, police reality shows, or on social media.

This synoptic visibility also disciplines: those who are observed modify their behavior. Public exposure becomes a stage for normative expectations, a site of moral judgment, and a medium of subtle power. Even the audience becomes part of the surveillance apparatus by consuming, sharing, and commenting on media content.

In sum, Mathiesen describes a new societal formation—the „Viewer Society“—in which control operates not just from above, but also through mutual visibility, representation, and media logic. This form of power is less overt yet just as effective as traditional disciplinary institutions.

Theoretical Framework

Mathiesen’s ideas are heavily influenced by Foucault’s power analysis, but he goes beyond the panoptic model. By focusing on the role of television and mass media, he bridges critical criminology with media theory. The term “Synopticon” is not just a technical counterpoint to the Panopticon but a cultural structure underpinning a new form of social order.

He offers an early critique of the mediatization of criminal justice, the popularization of crime through television (CrimeActs or omissions that violate criminal laws and are punishable by the state.-TV, reality formats), and the trend of exercising social control via visibility and publicity. In today’s world—shaped by digital platforms, algorithmic visibility, and “likes” as social currency—his diagnosis appears more relevant than ever.

Reception and Relevance

The Viewer Society gained wide recognition in surveillance studies and critical criminology. Mathiesen’s concept of the Synopticon has been further developed by scholars such as David Lyon, Kevin Haggerty, and Kirstie Ball in their analyses of digital surveillance (social media, big data, predictive policing). Bernard Harcourt’s concept of the “Expository Society” (2015) also builds on Mathiesen’s insight that visibility itself is a tool of power.

Cultural phenomena provide additional parallels: the audience role in reality TV, the viewing of police interventions via YouTube or bodycam footage, and the phenomenon of public shaming on social networks. Mathiesen’s central thesis—that modern control operates through mutual visibility—gains haunting significance in the digital age.

Related Key Works

• Michel Foucault – Discipline and Punish (1975)
• Bernard Harcourt – The Illusion of Free Markets (2011)
• Didier Fassin – Enforcing Order (2013)
• David Lyon – Surveillance Studies (2007)
• Kevin Haggerty & Richard Ericson – The New Politics of Surveillance and Visibility (2006)

Conclusion

With The Viewer Society, Thomas Mathiesen offers a brilliant analysis of the transformation of social control in the media age. Rather than replacing the Panopticon, he complements it with a sharper lens on contemporary power technologies. Visibility becomes currency, publicity a disciplinary tool. In times of digital transparency, media scandals, and algorithmic governance, Mathiesen’s work provides an indispensable framework for understanding today’s practices of surveillance and punishment.

Extended Conclusion: A Society of Visibility—Without Control?

At first glance, Mathiesen’s The Viewer Society describes how the logics of social control have changed in the media age. But his approach is deeply critical. The society of spectators he envisions is no utopia of democratic oversight—it is the expression of a subtler regime of power. Visibility, according to Mathiesen, does not liberate but disciplines or depoliticizes, depending on how it is mediated and consumed.

The spectator’s role within the Synopticon creates the illusion of participation. In reality, the audience remains largely passive—consuming, judging morally, yet structurally powerless. Visibility does not equal responsibility; watching does not equal action. Mathiesen warns of a society in which control is organized not through violence, but through images, attention, and ritualized media performances.

Especially concerning is the fusion of law enforcement and spectacle—as seen in reality formats or crime shows. For Mathiesen, this reflects a dangerous trend: social control is mediatized, moralized, and commodified. Visibility becomes a currency for approval, outrage, and the staging of deviance. In this sense, the Viewer Society describes nothing less than the cultural restructuring of power in the digital age.

Mathiesen’s analysis remains highly relevant to contemporary debates on algorithms and platform logics, cancel culture and online shaming, copwatch and protest videos. Because visibility can work both ways—disciplining or subversive, empowering or disempowering—his concept invites critique, adaptation, and further reflection. The Viewer Society is not a closed theory but an analytical tool for exploring the ambivalence of modern visibility cultures.

Critique and Expansion: When Visibility Does Not Discipline

Mathiesen’s concept of the “Viewer Society” describes a society in which visibility becomes a norm-enforcing force. Yet in the age of digital media, numerous examples show that being seen does not necessarily lead to discipline or conformity. On the contrary: visibility is often used to subvert norms, provoke, or turn publicity into a stage for deviance.

Phenomena such as happy slapping (recording and sharing violent acts), live-streamed mass shootings, or deliberate transgressions by influencers demonstrate the limits of synoptic control. Visibility does not lead to conformity but becomes a means of self-display, attention-seeking, or even escalation. Offenders act not in spite of the camera but because of it.

Mathiesen was well aware of this ambivalence. He emphasized that the Synopticon is not a comprehensive disciplinary structure but a condition of possibility—it may enforce norms, but not inevitably. The Viewer Society is not homogeneous: it can educate or numb, mobilize or silently accept. In later writings (e.g., Silently Silenced), Mathiesen addresses the paradox that, despite omnipresent images, meaningful reactions often fail to follow.

In the age of social media, it becomes essential to ask whether the Synopticon must be complemented by a new logic—such as Bernard Harcourt’s “Expository Society,” in which people voluntarily expose themselves to gain participation and recognition. From a Cultural CriminologyA perspective that studies crime and control as cultural products shaped by meaning, emotion, and symbolism. perspective, visibility strategies can be read as symbolic practices—acts of aesthetic rebellion or moral disorientation.

Visibility does not always discipline—it can also perform, provoke, or seduce. Mathiesen’s Viewer Society remains a central but debatable concept that must be continuously updated in light of new developments.

References

• Mathiesen, T. (1997). The Viewer Society: Michel Foucault’s ‚Panopticon‘ Revisited. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget.
• Mathiesen, T. (2004). Silently Silenced: Essays on the Creation of Acquiescence in Modern Society. Winchester: Waterside Press.
• Foucault, M. (1977). Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. New York: Pantheon Books.
• Lyon, D. (2007). Surveillance Studies: An Overview. Cambridge: Polity Press.
• Haggerty, K. D., & Ericson, R. V. (2006). The New Politics of Surveillance and Visibility. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
• Ball, K., Haggerty, K. D., & Lyon, D. (Eds.). (2012). Routledge Handbook of Surveillance Studies. London: Routledge.
• Harcourt, B. E. (2015). Exposed: Desire and Disobedience in the Digital Age. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
• Mann, S., Nolan, J., & Wellman, B. (2003). Sousveillance: Inventing and Using Wearable Computing Devices for Data Collection in Surveillance Environments. Surveillance & Society, 1(3), 331–355.
• Marx, G. T. (2002). What’s New About the “New Surveillance”? Surveillance & Society, 1(1), 9–29.