Keywords
digital surveillance; privacy; double consciousness; online double consciousness; digital gaze; W.E.B. DuBois; Frantz Fanon; panopticon; artificial intelligence; algorithmic bias; surveillance capitalism
Abstract
The panopticon of digital surveillance undermines identity formation and realization of our authentic selves. This Essay offers a new insight by conceptualizing alienation from genuine selfhood as a form of “double consciousness.” W.E.B. Du Bois formulated the notion of double consciousness—the dual awareness inherent in negotiating between a self-defined identity and an externally imposed one. Just as Du Bois speaks of “double consciousness” for African Americans, the ever-present digital gaze to which we are now all subject—regardless of our race—creates a similar duality. I call this duality “online double consciousness,” which is compounded for people of color and other historically disadvantaged groups and individuals.
Recommended Citation
Catherine Powell,
Digital Gaze and Constitutional Democracy at 250,
95 Fordham L. Rev. 553
(2026).
Available at: https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/flr/vol95/iss2/5
Included in
Civil Rights and Discrimination Commons, Computer Law Commons, Internet Law Commons, Law and Gender Commons, Law and Race Commons, Law and Society Commons, Privacy Law Commons, Science and Technology Law Commons