The dialogic performativity of secrecy and transparency

Abstract

How does the pursuit of transparency and insight tend to produce secrecy and vice versa? In popular and political discourse, secrecy and transparency are usually depicted as mutually exclusive practices. At the same time, we know from extant research that the two are closely related, that they each have performative effects, and tend to encroach on each other. The inseparability and performative dynamics between the two, however, remains to be unfolded. This critical essay revisits the secrecy-transparency relationship through the lens of Edgar Morin’s dialogical principle. From this perspective, we argue that secrecy-transparency dialogics perform as a complex whole, involving both complementary and antagonistic forces. As an illustration of dialogic performativity, we draw on the phenomenon and practice of ‘open meetings’ in public sector organizations. Specifically, we argue that the ambiguous fascination with knowing and not knowing create conditions for simulated insight and self-imposed conformity in ways that recalibrate the relationship between transparency and secrecy. On this background, we call for renewed critical and reflexive engagement with the transparency ideal and its presumed antipode, secrecy.

Transparency ideals in online PR: between dialogue, control and authenticity

“…This goes to show that transparency and secrecy are two closely interrelated concepts. Even though the latter tends to be viewed more negatively, both concepts play an essential role in shaping stakeholder relations and public discourse (Cronin, 2020; Fan and Christensen, 2023). Therefore, practitioners must carefully examine the positive and negative effects of the transparency-secrecy-nexus.…”

“…Lastly, the new possibilities of digital identity construction combined with the economic competition for trust and attention promote the creation of false transparency accounts dedicated to the persuasion of organizational stakeholders (Vujnovic and Kruckeberg, 2016). Thus, transparency is no longer viewed as an objective medium of verification but more as a socially constructed performative phenomenon for managing visibility in the context of digitalization (Albu and Flyverbom, 2019; Fan and Christensen, 2023).…”

The Question of Digital Responsibility: An Ethnography of Emergent Institutional Formations in the Contemporary Governance of Technology

“…According to Morin (2008), recursivity entails "a process where the products and the effects are at the same time causes and producers of what produces them" (ibid. : 49; see also Fan & Christensen, 2023). The way to resolve the seeming paradox should thus not be to distinguish absolutely between situationally enacted performativity, on the one hand, and a set of pre-established institutional felicity conditions, on the other.…”