Information regime refers to the form of domination that information processing algorithms and ai do on our socio-economic and political processes in our society . Under these regimes and those of these kinds, Byung Chul Han says that it is not bodies and energies that are being exploited as in the case of disciplinary societies of Michel Foucault. Information regime as the name indicates exploits information. Information is the new oil. Power does not depends on the means of production as Karl Marx told us. Power comes to those who have access to information which is then used for psychopolitcal surveillance and the control of prediction of behaviour . Information regime, thus, is tied to information capitalism that is further reduced to surveillance capital which reduces humans to consumer cattle that produces data.
Disciplinary societies were born out of industrial regime. With the rise of information industry, we entered the societies of control of Gilles Deleuze. In a disciplinary society, every person has a place and task assigned. He/ she becomes a cog in the machinery power of the disciplinary society. Disciplinary societies are therefore, mechanical. They work on the bodies as they undergo the regimes of disciplines and become docile. Docile bodies are production machines . They worked mindlessly in the factory doing the same thing all the time due to what we call division of labour. In thes conditions , the bodies are not bearers of information. They are bearers of energy. Under disciplinary regime Byung Chul Han says that humans are drilled to become laboring cattle.
Disciplinary regimes required enclosures like the prison, school, church , hospital , factory etc. Information regime does not need enclosures . Information society uses interconnection and communication breaking the enclosures and isolation employed by disciplinary societies. The subject of information regime is not docile , submissive and obedient minlesa body. The subject of information regime is agile, alert , free and creative. Deleuze says that the subject is dividual no longer individual. He/ she is self focused but scattered. The subject self performs itself . He/she produces obe’s self by performing himsel/herself. Foucault manifests that discuplinary societies use isolation as a means of domination and production of submission. Panopticon is the climax of disciplinary society. Information regimes on the other hand do not need isolation. They do use surveillance. Surveillance is conducted through data. Isolated inmates of disciplinary panopticon do not produce data. Disciplinary societies, therefore, are dying.
Disciplinary societies used bio-power to discipline bodies. Information societies use psychopolitcal power . Information regime works on our psyche. The body has its role. It has come into attention industry where it enjoys recognition in the social media platforms. Thus the body is emancipated from disciplinary power that made it into a laboring machine for the factory . Body has now become captured by the beauty industry. It is under what we may call the politics of visibility. The spectacle is the medium. Power,, therefore, has to become visible. The ruling power will then need to be theatrical. It requires events and rituals of glamour as well as heartless violence to visibilize its power. Public space is thus, the new stage of demonstrating or performing power. Our democracy is melting into infocracy and we have become consumers of spectacles of power. We are coming step closer to the sovereign societies of yester years but with a difference. The sovereign societies were also spectacular but they had no vigilant surveillance. Society under information regime puts everyone of us into a panoptic machine.
Disciplinary powers remain invisible while imposing permanent visibility on the subjects under discipline. This leads the subjects under disciplining power to internalize their surveillance and self police themselves. It is a society that George Orwell’s Big Brother manifests this in his novel1984 .Under information regime, there are no isolating structures but open networks accessed on the internet. Visibility is produced not through isolations but through interconnecting networks. We have become subjects of the network. There is no need of self policing disciple. People produce themselves without any external compulsion. Visibility transmutes into transparency. All institutions are called to come into the light of transparency. The paradox of information society is that people are imprisoned by information. We are digital prisoners imposing a regime of self production on us without any external compulsion. May we have to learn to resist the society under infocracy .
We can only free ourself from the prying eyes or surveillance 24/7 by being an anti-Oculus. Disciplinary societies require the rebellion of anti- Oedipus. We have to refuse to enter the interconnections provided the information societies, These interconnections make us vulnerable and keep us under the surveillance of the vested interest. But we are seduced to enjoy the perks of neoliberal economy. With the rise of touch screen of the smart phone, we have chained ourselves as everything that we touch on the touch screen links us to everything that is consumable. While we consume with the power of our touch, we still keep our foot prints for those that take them as raw materials for the big data companies to prey on. We have to find a way out of this dataism that controls our society. We have the challenge to contest the psychopolitics that is data driven. We are chained to infocracy. We have to revive our democracy. The public sphere is colonized and we need to overcome our world that has become an amphitheater. We have the challenge to dismantle midiacracy that is fast dissolving into theatrocracy. Slowly but steadily, our theater has become telecracy where the idiot box dominates. We truly have to rise above society of information. We do not need a palliative society. We need society of that take charge of its own destiny.
