Research Handbook on Information Policy

‘This useful collection of twenty-eight chapters presents an insightful view of the history of the information policy concept, and theory and developments in the field. The authors are drawn from a variety of disciplines, from philosophy to journalism, via communication studies and information science. They also represent a wider range of countries than is typical of this kind of compilation, coming from Spain, Canada, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Germany, and Israel, although the majority are from the United Kingdom and the USA. Consequently, the range of cultural, political, scientific, and economic factors that provide the context for policy are more diverse than one would find in a text devoted to any single country. The editor has done an excellent job in pulling these authors together and producing a text that will benefit researchers and students of information policy. . . I reiterate that the text is an excellent compilation of contributions to the field and will no doubt become a standard reference on the subject.’
– Professor Tom Wilson, Information Research

‘In 1976, I wrote a doctoral dissertation at Stanford University, The Information Economy. In 1980, I hosted a documentary called The Information Society. It was an introduction to a general TV audience of what I felt were—and would be—the key issues facing an information-based society.

Alistair Duff’s compendium of thought leaders underscores the fact that each era brings with it the rich opportunities of positive evolution, and the pressures and problems of a society and economy undergoing extremely rapid change. As with the industrial revolution, technology, social values, markets, laws and equity are out of sync. Some coherent guidance will emerge from competitive market dynamics and governance. Some will fall through the cracks and remain a challenge. This book is a worthy effort to bring all that together.’
– Marc Uri Porat, Tech Entrepreneur and Angel Investor, US


‘This collection makes a huge contribution to our understanding of why information society and information policy research are crucial – retrospectively and prospectively. Theorised from multiple standpoints, this collection of leading scholars tells us how power is articulated through information, enabling surveillance, perpetuating inequalities, and creating conditions for either sustaining or curtailing freedom of expression, privacy and access to information. Required reading for everyone interested in the potentials of democratic discourse.’
– Robin Mansell, London School of Economics and Political Science, UK

Contributors: Alistair Black, Sandra Braman, Ruth Chadwick, Ian Cornelius, Alistair S. Duff, William H. Dutton, John Feather, Steve Fuller, Blayne Haggart, Catherine Heeney, Arne Hintz, Paul T. Jaeger, Sue Curry Jansen, László Z. Karvalics, Michael A. Katell, Emily J.M. Knox, Petr Lupač, Ben McConville, Victoria Nash, Julia Pohle, Priscilla M. Regan, Amit M. Schejter, Ivan Szekely, Natalie Greene Taylor, Richard D. Taylor, Kim M. Thompson, Margaret Ann Wilkinson, Ben Worthy, Aljona Zorina

Contents:

Foreword xv
Youichi Ito
1 Introduction to the Research Handbook on Information Policy 1
Alistair S. Duff

PART I GENERAL THEORY
THE NATURE OF INFORMATION POLICY
2 Intervention and aesthetics: the nature of information policy 25
Ian Cornelius
3 Ecstasy and entropy: information policy in a punctuated case 40
Sandra Braman
4 Prophetic v. priestly: alternative modes of information policy 56
Steve Fuller

THE HISTORY OF INFORMATION POLICY
5 Information policy before information policies? Conceptual and
historical considerations 69
László Z. Karvalics
6 Aspects of the history of state information policies in Britain before the
digital age 80
Alistair Black
7 International information policy: UNESCO in historical perspective 96
Julia Pohle

THE FUTURE OF INFORMATION POLICY
8 The future of information policy: preparing for transformational change 114
Richard D. Taylor
9 The ecology of games reshaping information policy: internet access in
Belarus to cyber harms in the United Kingdom 130
William H. Dutton and Aljona Zorina
10 The intertwined futures of information policy and information literacy 146
Paul T. Jaeger and Natalie Greene Taylor

PART II SPECIFIC ISSUES
PRIVACY
11 Fifty-plus years of information privacy policy-making: the more things
change, the more they remain the same 159
Priscilla M. Regan
12 An equity view of public reason: privacy and surveillance policy as
social justice 174
Michael A. Katell
13 Privacy’s progress: privacy as a progressive ideal for information policy 189
Alistair S. Duff

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION
14 Freedom of information: a constitutive public good in democratic societies 205
Ivan Szekely
15 Freedom of information: a state of the art 220
Ben Worthy
16 Public or private? Freedom of information and the Scottish struggle for
scrutiny of public bodies 237
Ben McConville

FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION
17 Freedom of expression in a datafied world 250
Arne Hintz
18 Agility in an age of information ubiquity: freedom of expression and
information policy 263
Emily J.M. Knox
19 Gatecrashers? Freedom of expression in an age-gated internet 276
Victoria Nash

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
20 Rights and wrongs: old and new perspectives on copyright 291
John Feather
21 Intellectual property and the reliability of content: the case for moral rights 306
Margaret Ann Wilkinson
22 The ratcheting racket: the global political economy of copyright policy-making 323
Blayne Haggart

INFORMATION INEQUALITY
23 Information inequality: realization of capabilities as an information policy goal 341
Amit M. Schejter
24 Planning and evaluating policy to address information inequalities: an
Information Worlds Matrix approach 357
Kim M. Thompson
25 How (not) to deepen information inequality via information policy:
a contribution of the contextual approach 368
Petr Lupač

PART III SPECIAL INFORMATION
26 Genetic information: fundamental issues 385
Ruth Chadwick
27 Ethical challenges for the production and dissemination of official
statistics in the big data environment 398
Catherine Heeney
28 Informing the public sphere: Walter Lippmann on democracy and news,
with a coda on Jurgen Habermas 413
Sue Curry Jansen

Index