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The Algorithmic Gaze: Power, Surveillance, and Despotism in the Digital Workplace

The Algorithmic Gaze: Power, Surveillance, and Despotism in the Digital Workplace
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Author(s): Palak Aggarwal (Christ University, India)and Diksha Pandey (Christ University, India)
Copyright: 2026
Pages: 34
Source title: Digital Ideologies in the Age of Algorithmic Culture
Source Author(s)/Editor(s): Esra Gökçen Kaygisiz (University of Giresun, Turkey)
DOI: 10.4018/979-8-3373-4531-4.ch011

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Abstract

This chapter investigates the ways that algorithmic technologies reconfigure workplace authority by changing how we think about surveillance, evaluation, and control in data-driven management practices. Drawing from and reconceptualising Foucault's Panopticon and Zuboff's Surveillance Capitalism, it contends that the algorithmic gaze creates an invisible governance system, where trust and autonomy are replaced by quantification. Through case studies in service, fintech, and logistics sectors, the analysis highlights how discourses of efficiency and performance sustainability legitimise digital despotism, bias, and workers self-monitoring. The chapter concludes with a framework for digital humanism, which articulates ethical, transparent, and participatory governance and management, which can restore human dignity and agency in algorithmically mediated labour.

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