The founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, once said, "transparency is for Governments and big corporations, privacy is for individuals." This summarizes his activism for freedom of speech and for governmental and transnational corporations transparency and for individual's privacy. We all must engage in such activism. A better politics and governance, a more democratic and inclusive political system, and respect for our right to privacy, depend on this fight. This post is a summary of a book review from the book with the title above and published at http://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/viewFile/6227/1787
A swarm of research has been buzzing around subjects such as WikiLeaks ( and other platform of digital disclosure), open government initiatives, and antisecrecy advocacy. While communication scholars explicate their theoretical implications and assess their practical effects, the causal factors that helped spur their development have received little attention. Our field urgently needed a text that, rather than taking for granted the artifacts of today's culture of transparency, puts this culture in a historical and sociological context. The latest book by Michael Schudson valuably fills this need by examining a set of social, political, and cultural shifts from the Cold War era, which propelled a new model of demoracy in which people could, as never before, expect "freedom of information" and transparency from their government. This type of democracy has been characterized alternately as "advocacy democracy," and "monitory democracy." Schudson introduces each of these before ultimately endorsing political scientist John Keane's idea of monitory democracy. He observes how "modern democracies...especially after 1945, have added new mechanisms of representation that allow continuous, rather than episodic, representation; popularly generated rather than party-controlled representation; and many platforms for entrepreneurial democratic action. By his lights, these developments contribute to a democratic practice in which various actors and institutions keep an eye on one another, engendering a political system that is "more representative than ever." We tend to think of the advent of political polling, fact-checking, and watchdog organizations as key players in this new monitorial culture. But we could also think of the way in which politicians send "trackers" with handheld cameras to their opponents' rallies in hopes of recording a gaffe or the way in which news organizations have begun to publicly criticize each other for reporting errors and perceived bias. The bulk of Schdson's book, after all, is concerned with cultural history and media sociology, not political theory. Schudson source and synthesizes seemingly eclectic phenomena from various parts of political and popular culture to craft a comprehensive and compelling analysis. Included in this analysis, to different degrees, are the passage of the Freedom of Information Act in 1996, the emergence of television talk shows, which "incorporated openness as a practice and as a value;" the Inspectors General Act of 1978, which dramatically expanded government accountability; the increasing prevalence and influence of whistleblowers during the Watergate era. Schudson stes out "to sketch the emergence of a culture of disclosure... and institutionalization of civic knowing" and to explain them. He begins his analysis by stalking out a general claim and overarching observation: "In domains public, private, and professional, expanded disclosure practices have become more fully institutionalized in the past half century and the virtue and value of openeness more accepted, enough so to suggest that both the experience of being human and the experience of constructing a democracy have changed in response to a new transparency imperative and a new embrace of a right to know. The reader is then taken on a tour with several fascinating stops. It begins with examination of the origins of the Freedom of Information Act and then is followed by: the advancement of informational rights for consumers, legislative reforms which made the workings of congress more visible, the advent of more independent and contextual journalism, and the broader changes within democratic political norms that accommodated and encouraged new culture of transparency. Schudson's work is distinhuished by a knack for situating sociological analysis within historical research. This makes for engrossing narratives. He acknowledge that sociologists are more confortable investigating social structures and processes, and have much to learn from historians who "may remind us that events, unpredicted but impossible to ignore, and forceful individual personalities, not just generational cohorts or offices and roles, matter." In emphasizing the importance of pivotal events, Schudson's work departs from not only an ahistorical habit within wherein social and cultural dynamics are seen as stable and explicable products of institutional arrangements. But also included are "the happenstance of everyday politics, everyday events, and a "spirit that made right-to-know or disclosure reforms resonants with a changing culture." With a broad analytical perspective, Schudson convincingly demonstrates how individuals and events uniquely contributed to this spirit, or "what British scholar Raymond Williams called a 'structure of feeling', as institutions acted to catalyze and codify it." Schudson's book also departs from the historian's habit of focusing on the ostensibly "historic" personalities, the presidents and media moguls who championed open government to shine a light on the work of senior bureaucrats and obscure lawmakers, the unsung agents of social change. John Moss was a California Congressman and a "longtime Democratic activist with an indomitable work ethic" who tapped into the patriotism of Cold War to promote the freedom of information legislation that ultimately became the Freedom Information Act. Esther Peterson was the Kennedy and Johnson administration official who pushed for truth-in-packaging bills before heading to work for supermarkets to initiate consumers reforms such as nutritional labeling practices. Richard Conlon was a former journalist who, for decades, headed the Democratic Study Group, a congressional caucus that used research to push progressive policies. Readers who come to this book in a university setting might be satisfied to learn much of the current culture of transparency is attribute to a "mass public with access to a critical culture in higher education" and that the expansion and shifting character of college education helps expalin not only the changing culture (as audiences increasingly obtained college degrees) but also the growing acceptance efforts to keep a more watchful eye on government and sometimes also on corporate that touches consumers directly. In his final chapter, Schudson recalls how he began his research expecting the rise of the transparency movement. A critical reading of this text suggest cultural transformation are not, in fact, as patterned and predictable as some scholars would like to believe. Nor is this continuity something upon which we can blindly rely. "The rise of cultural support and institutional mechanisms for a right to know need to be a permanent transformation." Schudson warns. Just as those who forget dark parts of history are doomed to repeat them, those who fail to appreciate brighter parts of history are liable to fail to sustain them. "Sometimes the human spirit shifts. When it does, and when it does in a way that enhances human capacities, we should recognize it and accord it the honor it deserves." By giving us such an illuminative book that simultaneously examines a culture of information and openness as well as represents an examplar of that culture, Schudson honor that spirit indeed.
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