Sunlight in cyberspace? On transparency as a form of ordering

Abstract

While we witness a growing belief in transparency as an ideal solution to a wide range of societal problems, we know less about the practical workings of transparency as it guides conduct in organizational and regulatory settings. This article argues that transparency efforts involve much more than the provision of information and other forms of ‘sunlight’, and are rather a matter of managing visibilities than providing insight and clarity. Building on actor-network theory and Foucauldian governmentality studies, it calls for careful attention to the ways in which transparency ideals are translated into more situated practices and become associated with specific organizational and regulatory concerns. The article conceptualizes transparency as a force that shapes conduct in organizational and socio-political domains. In the second section, this conceptualization of transparency as a form of ‘ordering’ is substantiated further by using illustrations of the effects of transparency efforts in the internet domain.

Born Political: A Dispositive Analysis of Google and Copyright

“…Dispositive analysis, it is here proposed, provides a means of respecting the complexity, and reducing the complications, of Google's politics. Most generally, it does this by acknowledging that strategic actions are influenced by, and can influence: law dispositives that prescribe and prohibit behavior (Foucault, 1985, p.25;2007, p.5;Habermas, 1996, p.116); ethical dispositives associated with communal identities (O'Neill, 1996, pp.49-50), "forms of life" (Habermas, 1996, p.62), or "forms of subjectivation" (Foucault, 1985, p.29); and utilitarian dispositives that (try to) order (Flyverbom, 2011(Flyverbom, , 2015 or steer (Vallentin & Murillo, 2012) conduct with ensembles (Foucault, 1980, p.194) that combine various elements (e.g., architectures, ethics, rules) whilst acknowledging that popular conduct is a "natural phenomenon that cannot be changed by decree" (Foucault, 2007, pp.47, 71).…”

Data in the smart city: How incongruent frames challenge the transition from ideal to practice

“…Ideals of transparency, themselves, are sources of power, as they contribute to making people, objects, and processes knowable and governable in specific ways. When transparency is used to manage visibilities, it becomes a mode of ordering that is just as strategic as other modes of ordering (Flyverbom, 2015). The idea that transparency is one among a competing set of organisational values is what is adhered to when the data owner's vocation touches upon the value of secrecy and trust in public administrations.…”

Politics of Disclosure: Organizational Transparency as Multiactor Negotiation

“…Heimstädt ). Recently, Flyverbom () suggested studying transparency not as a stable order, but as a “form of ordering ” (emphasis added), thereby referring to a processual understanding of these arenas and their politics of disclosure. Against the backdrop of our definition developed above, we modify this suggestion and propose studying organizational transparency as a process of negotiation.…”