Foucault, exhibitionism and voyeurism on chatroulette

Kreps, DGP

Abstract

Sexuality, understood as a Foucauldian discourse that expresses itself through our passions and pursuits and contributes massively to our socially- constructed identity formation, has from the outset been a major factor in the growth of the internet. As the ultimate look-but-don‘t-touch medium, the computer screen has offered us a pornographic emporium in the privacy of our homes, fed first by the producers of material in the standard broadcast mode, then more and more by ourselves, to each other, in the social media context of online sexual social networking. The recent shift of sexual video material from broadcast to social media mode highlights the fundamental exhibitionism/voyeurism dyad at the core of all this activity, and finds its most impersonal, anonymous apotheosis in the phenomenon that is ChatRoulette, where visual discourse-objects are deployed in a nexus of online sexual power relations.

Citation

Kreps, D. Foucault, exhibitionism and voyeurism on chatroulette. Presented at Cultural attitudes towards technology and communication 2010, Vancouver, Canada

• Presentation Conference Type: Other
• Conference Name: Cultural attitudes towards technology and communication 2010
• Conference Location: Vancouver, Canada
• End Date: Jun 21, 2010
• Publication Date: Jun 1, 2010
• Deposit Date: Oct 4, 2010
• Publicly Available Date: Oct 4, 2010
• Publisher URL: http://www.catacconference.org/
• Additional Information: Event Type : Conference