Page 73 - Looking_after_school

2. The architecture: from the educational institution
to the learning environment

form the function of tell-tales or monitors - that is, of elements which
indicate a performance” (ibid., p. 24). In order to know who you are
and how you continue to profile yourself, you constantly need a reac-
tion to your profile. This could be a ‘like’ on social media, reactions to
a new post, new followers… But this could, at the very least, also be a
provoked reaction which confirms your existence: sending or posting
a message with the primary intent of receiving a sign of recognition.
This is a conscious mobilisation of the other in order to confirm
your existence. Wiener writes that applause is actually the first basal
form of feedback. In this power configuration, and as soon as it is
about profiles and not norms or rules, searching for applause is not
(merely) a sign of narcissism, but an essential part of being somebody
(as a person). You can search for applause by profiling yourself or
by looking for enthusiastic audiences. In this configuration you are
literally nobody without a profile, but also not without a stage or a
platform, or without friends or a network. It is not the need for rules
and order nor the need for normality, which is determinant here, but
rather the need for recognition/acknowledgement; and that need is
permanent. This is also why there is a permanent need for connec-
tion and constant availability within this configuration.
The paradigmatic expression of this power configuration is not
the synopticon or the panopticon. The technique of 360° feedback,
which stems from human resource management, is a suitable artic-
ulation. During 360° feedback, the employee is put in the middle
of the feedback circle, around which all the relevant actors from
the environment of the employee take their place: managers and
subordinates, but also customers, friends, and family… In the ideal
situation, the self-assessment of the employee coincides with the
evaluation of others. Monitoring of the discrepancy, the difference,
between how the employee sees themself and how they are perceived
by others, continuously delivers feedback with which they then re-
profile themselves. This is about personalisation: you have to want to
know how others perceive you, you have to want to profile yourself,
and you have to want to be recognisable (and acknowledgeable).

The 360° power diagram (profile, monitoring, feedback, recognition,
personalisation) sheds a different light on a number of social trends

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