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The article develops the concept of statistical panopticism, thereby combining the French approach of economics of convention (EC) and Michel Foucault's concept of panopticism. The differences between Foucault's original notion of panopticism and statistical panopticism are emphasized. It is argued that statistical panopticism has been made possible by the enormous growth of quantification, datafication, linking, and centralization of numerical data production, data collection, and data analysis. This has been (mainly) realized by private enterprises and implemented in different social spheres but also in private situations. From the perspective of EC, quantification, big data, and statistical panopticism have to be related to the foundational conventions of data production (measurement) and data interpretation. Foucault has analyzed the neoliberal and indirect form of contemporary governance. Statistical panopticism works as a dispositive for this neoliberal form of governance. Its asymmetric and mainly invisible character is sketched. Also the critique and the deficiencies of critique of political and economic usages of numerical data and indicators are discussed.

Contemporary Panopticism. Current social control; ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS; CONTENTS; ABSTRACT; INTRODUCTION; HISTORICAL ANALYSIS OF PANOPTICISM; CHARACTERISTICS OF PANOPTICISM; CONTEMPORARY SURVEILLANCE AND PRINCIPLES OF PANOPTICISM; INSTITUTIONAL SURVEILLANCE; SOCIAL MEDIA AND SURVEILLANCE; CONCLUSION; REFERENCES.

Panopticism is commonly taken to rely on something like a panoptic gaze – a reading of Foucault which still prevails in the discussion of today's surveillance (and subjectification) technologies in the wake of Surveiller et punir. In my re-reading of the relevant chapters of Foucault's book I argue that the gaze does not occupy a central role in the techniques of discipline and power that Foucault describes. Quite to the contrary, Foucault analyses virtualization and automatization procedures that – after cutting off of the King's head – invert and eliminate the sovereignty of the gaze as well: they also rip out the sovereign's eye. Surveiller et punir thus should be read as a book about a certain eyelessness of the modern political. Where truly modern power is assumed to be, there is nothing to be seen. This also means that panopticism does not provide a master key to understand digital technologies of power.

Abstract
The main theme of the paper is the role of the mass media in the production, creation, retention, protection and defense of a social order, or in carrying out revisions, or cosmetic and extensive changes to it. In the first section, the author explains the Power of the Mass Media by looking at Foucauldian leprosy/plague management. The second part, Docile Mass Media Producers Under Panoptic Control, deals with the routinization of the mass media craft. Finally, the Social Order of Docile Individuals who Feel Freedom takes a closer look at the social order and how it is created by mass media producers (as professionals in their craft).

The article develops the concept of statistical panopticism, thereby combining the French approach of economics of convention (EC) and Michel Foucault's concept of panopticism. The differences between Foucault's original notion of panopticism and statistical panopticism are emphasized. It is argued that statistical panopticism has been made possible by the enormous growth of quantification, datafication, linking, and centralization of numerical data production, data collection, and data analysis. This has been (mainly) realized by private enterprises and implemented in different social spheres but also in private situations. From the perspective of EC, quantification, big data, and statistical panopticism have to be related to the foundational conventions of data production (measurement) and data interpretation. Foucault has analyzed the neoliberal and indirect form of contemporary governance. Statistical panopticism works as a dispositive for this neoliberal form of governance. Its asymmetric and mainly invisible character is sketched. Also the critique and the deficiencies of critique of political and economic usages of numerical data and indicators are discussed.