Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to explore the features of surveillance society in late modernity in terms of individualization theory. ‘Surveillance Society’ and ‘Individualization’ are both of social phenomena of late modernity that many researchers have observed since the late 1980’s. At the beginning, these two concepts were independent of each other. In recent years, however, Mikami Takeshi, a Japanese Sociologist, has pointed out the relation between surveillance society and individualization. But, his arguments are abstract and fragmentary. Hence this study examines how surveillance society appears in late modernity in relation to individualization. We explain this using the particular phenomenon of the monitoring children in Japan since 2000’s.
