Dr Clare Birchall, PhD

Cultural Studies <=> Critical Methodologies, Jan 2013 forthcoming.

‘Radical Transparency?’

Keywords:

E-transparency, narrative-interpretive disclosure, data, societies of control, WikiLeaks

Abstract

This article considers the cultural positioning of transparency as a superior form of disclosure

through a comparative analysis with other forms. One, as yet under-examined appeal of

transparency lies in its promise to circumvent the need for, and usurp the role of, narrative-

interpretive forms of disclosure such as scandal, gossip, and conspiracy theories. This growing

preference for transparency as a more enlightening, honorable mode of disclosure is not just a

result of the positive qualities that are seen to be intrinsic to transparency (particularly e-

transparency) itself, but a response to the perceived negative characteristics of other forms of

disclosure. It is also an ideological predilection: transparency reinforces neoliberal tenets as

much as democratic ideals. WikiLeaks is invoked in this article as a case which draws on both

e-transparency and narrative-interpretive forms of disclosure. This hybrid form helps us to

explore the possibility and implications of non-ascendant, radical forms of transparency.

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Radical Transparency?

Many reasons lie behind the appeal of transparency. It is an apparently simple solution to

complex problems – such as how to fight corruption, promote trust in government, support

corporate social responsibility, and foster state accountability. Moreover, transparency seems

to span the political divide; but it is thought of as a "pan-ideological good" (Triplett, 2010)

primarily because it depoliticizes what are essentially political decisions. Transparency, in

other words, is presented as a technical rather than political settlement (Ruppert, 2012). As a

proactive implementation at moments of crisis or moral failure, a visible response to public

disquiet, transparency has attractive, palliative qualities for politicians and CEOs who want to

be seen to be doing rather than reflecting. It also chimes with a (Western) culture that favors, at

least on the surface, confession and disclosure over secrecy as a general modus operandi. If

secrecy has come to signify state oppression or personal repression, transparency accumulates

more positive associations. As such, transparency bestows both cultural and moral capital on

those who promote and implement it. Elsewhere, I have examined the rise of transparency and

the assumptions behind it in these terms (Birchall, 2011a; 2011b; 2011c). In this article,

however, I want to consider the cultural positioning of transparency through a comparative

analysis with other forms of disclosure in order to raise the question of what kind(s) of

transparency we need today.

Transparency has been largely conceived as a trust-building alternative to secrecy, but

another, as yet under-examined appeal, lies in its promise to circumvent the need for, and

usurp the role of other forms of disclosure such as scandal, gossip, and conspiracy theories.1

These, what I will be calling in this article "narrative-interpretive forms of disclosure" because

of their speculative, embellishing, creative, causal, iterative, and fictionalizing tendencies, are

apparently rendered redundant by transparency. Why gossip about a colleague’s salary if your

company publishes every employee’s level of remuneration? Another UK MP’s expenses

scandal is pre-empted by the publication of accounts by the Independent Parliamentary

Standards Authority (IPSA). A report from UK think tank Demos suggests that open

government will reduce conspiracy theories (Bartlett & Miller, 2010). Transparency pledges to

shed light when narrative-interpretive forms seem to obfuscate as much as they might reveal.

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This growing preference for transparency as a more enlightening, honorable mode of

disclosure is as much a response to the perceived negative characteristics of other forms of

disclosure as it is a result of the positive qualities seen to be intrinsic to transparency itself.

Narrative-interpretive forms of disclosure are seen to operate on the margins of lawful

behavior (scandal and gossip can be litigious, and conspiracy theory has the whiff of sedition),

and are "contaminated" by human needs and desires, as well as moral and political positions. If

transparency, particularly when implemented by ICTs (i.e. "e-transparency"), is considered a

primary, neutral, automated, systematic, efficient, lawful and regulatory mode of disclosure,

narrative-interpretive disclosures are classed as secondary, manipulated re-tellings. Such a

configuration shores up the presentation of e-transparency as the democratic tool par

excellence, not only because it is seen to disseminate pre-interpretive or non-interpretive

information and data in an efficient fashion, but also because it can reduce the sphere of these

other forms of disclosure which might "pollute" the rationality and knowledge necessary for

citizens to be counted as "well-informed" and capable of making a valuable contribution to the

public sphere. Indeed, as I will show, narrative-interpretive forms present a number of

epistemological problems. It should be noted at the outset that while these epistemological

problems become a central focus for critics rather than any feature of narrative per se, the root

of the term "narrative" draws on both knowing (gnārus) and telling (narrō) (White, 1987, p.215

fn.2). Questions of epistemology are, then, central to the life cycle of narrative-interpretive

forms.

By widening the lens to consider the forms of disclosure transparency is intended to improve

upon or free us from, we can gain a better understanding of what prejudices, anxieties and

preferences, as well as ideological paradigms, fuel transparency advocacy. This article,

therefore, seeks to consider the negative characterization of narrative-interpretive forms of

disclosure and the consequences of this for our conception of the democratic socius; question

the opposition between narrative-interpretive disclosure and transparency; and lastly,

consider the case of WikiLeaks which operationalizes a form of "narrative-interpretive

transparency": a hybrid to rival the dominant vision of transparency qua objectivity.

Although we do not yet live in transparent times, we do live in an age of transparency

advocacy.2 With choices to be made, taxpayers’ money to invest, information infrastructure to

build, code to write, "apps" to develop, economic, political and corporate models and policies to

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be established, promises of accountability and responsibility to fulfill, and cynicism and

mistrust to counter, it is certainly important to consider whether transparency policies work in

practice.3 But it is also necessary to examine which cultural and moral codes are being enlisted

to shore up transparency as the ascendant paradigm for government, industry and finance. It is

pertinent to ask not only if transparency can fulfill its promise, but also how that promise is

constructed and what its implications are.4 What can such discursive preferences tell us? Is

there any room for a rival, potentially radical transparency?

Transparency as attitude

First, a definition. While many official accounts of transparency present it as a form of mere

‘information provision’ (see Flyverbom et al’s discussion, 2011, pp. 10-11), corporate and state

transparency is perhaps better described as an attitude: a commitment to operating in the

open, under the scrutiny of customers, stakeholders, citizens and other interested parties

through the publication of any or all of the following: datasets; minutes, transcripts or live

feeds of meetings; accounts; policies; decision-making procedures as well as the decisions

themselves; records of actions taken. Transparency is a doctrine of governance that includes

“decisions governed by clearly established and published rules and procedures rather than by

ad hoc judgments or processes; methods of accounting or public reporting that clarify who

gains from and who pays for any public measure; and governance that is intelligible and

accessible to the ‘general public’” (Hood, 2006, p. 5). There is, of course, always a limit to such a

commitment – a limit primarily determined by security issues for the state and market

competition for the corporation. State and trade secrets have to be considered in any equation

made concerning transparency.

Increasingly, the implementation of transparency policies is reliant upon and mediated by

ICTs. Though its future is somewhat uncertain due to funding cuts, the US site, data.gov, and

the UK equivalent, data.gov.uk, are exemplary in this respect. These sites are citizen-

government interfaces that represent commitment to transparency through the availability of

government datasets, processes and decision-making online. The increased processing and

storage capacities of ICTs, as well as the development of apps to repackage data, have made e-

transparency possible and will no doubt continue to make openness more efficient, timely and

widespread. Crucially, this form of transparency relies on citizen auditors – or in Evelyn

Ruppert’s terms, "citizen witnesses" (2012). The data, that is, must be transparent to a body of

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external onlookers who are able to monitor and assess it. Once the transparency system is

reliant upon these citizen auditors, it matters a great deal how good their skills of analysis and

interpretation are. This might be dependent on adequate education, to be sure, but also what

other messages and forms of disclosure are clogging the airwaves. Citizens should not be

distracted if they are to have any hope of tackling the official "data tsunami" coming from

government. Rival forms of disclosure become a very pressing issue for a transparency system

which outsources monitoring roles.

Understanding the relationship between transparency and narrative-interpretive forms of

disclosure matters, then, for two main reasons. First, because other forms of disclosure might

be seen to interfere with the transmission of messages and data that transparency promises.5

Second, because transparency gains some of its democratic credibility and general kudos not

only from the extent to which it enables participation, debate and legitimacy (consider the way

in which low-scoring countries on Transparency International’s indices are seen as

undemocratic [Torfing et al., 2012, p. 226]), but also through its relationship with what it

avoids and trumps (secrecy and corruption, to be sure, but also forms of disclosure it is thought

to supersede or provide an alternative to). In light of this, it is vital to consider whether

discursive configurations of the relationship between transparency and other forms of

disclosure are sustainable. Does a distinction hold up?

Cultural anxiety and disclosure

I am arguing that the promotion of transparency as a superior form of disclosure – as a neutral

form of information provision or "new objectivity" (Weinberger, 2009) – relies partly on a

cultural desire to free disclosure of the moral, legal and epistemological problems associated

with more denigrated forms. On occasion this desire is clearly expressed. For example, one of

the strategies for tackling conspiracy theories advocated by Demos (Bartlett & Miller, 2010)

and the historian Kathryn S. Olmsted (2011) is more transparency. Bartlett and Miller write,

"Conspiracy theories are a reaction to the lack of transparency and openness in many of our

institutions. The more open our institutions, the less likely we are to believe we are living in a

conspiring world" (Bartlett & Miller, 2010, p. 39). In terms of the specific transparency policies

Bartlett and Miller think the government should implement to tackle conspiracy theories, they

suggest "annual public intelligence reports produced by the new National Security Council,

more maximum disclosure policing, increased openness in court proceedings in major

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terrorism cases, and continued focus on good community relationships in counter-terrorism

policing" (Bartlett & Miller, 2010, p. 5). In Bartlett and Miller’s account, an explicit causal link is

drawn between conspiracy theory and extremist violence, but associations of a subtler nature,

as well as other assumptions and prejudices, inform the cultural anxiety that attends narrative-

interpretive forms of disclosure. In this section, I will examine some of these connotations and

assumptions, though it should be noted that not all of them pertain equally to each of the

narrative-interpretive forms (gossip, scandal, conspiracy theory) invoked in this article. In

addition, these assumptions do not necessarily derive from both terms in the appositional

compound "narrative-interpretive". After all, taken alone, "narrative" has few of the following

problems and is, rather, considered to play a fundamental role in human experience and

culture (White, 1987). I retain the term, however, because of the storytelling, linear,

embellishing, fictionalizing characteristics gossip etc are ascribed.

a) Narrative-interpretive forms of disclosure are morally suspect;

b) They exist on the periphery of legal practice and/or can give rise to illegal practice;

c) They are speculative and subjective and, therefore, unreliable;

d) They lack legitimacy.

I will expand on each of these in turn.

a) Narrative-interpretive forms of disclosure are morally suspect

Though scandals themselves often reinforce "moral ideas of the social good" (Cottle, 2006, p.

411), its mediation, particularly in the most extreme cases, can elicit moral condemnation. A

dismissal of scandal-led TV as "cultural rot" by William Bennet, former US secretary of

education, is a common sentiment (quoted in Lull and Hinerman, 1997, p. 1). Such an

attitude is reinforced by the tactics some tabloids have resorted to in order to secure the

details of, and therefore be able to mediate, a scandal. Notably, the News of the World’s use of

phone hacking in the UK has been almost universally criticized on moral and ethical grounds

(see Kennedy, 2011). Conspiracy theory, too, can give rise to accusations of immorality

particularly in cases where conspiracy theories express prejudice, or involve the denial of

important historical events. One only needs to note the disgust that meets anti-Semitic

claims that the holocaust was a myth invented by Jews as part of a conspiracy to secure

reparations and a homeland.

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Yet, the reception of narrative-interpretive forms of disclosure within a moral code is most

obviously apparent in the case of gossip.6 Gossip might, more often than not, be focused on

those who violate moral codes of behavior, but, ironically, it is seen to be a moral

infringement itself. Nicholas Emler writes, "gossip is not merely a sin of omission – one

should have been using one’s time more productively – but also a sin of commission. It is

deliberate mischief making" (1994, p. 119). Such beliefs are reinforced through religious

texts of many faiths. In the bible, "gossip appears among such serious transgressions as

malice, envy, murder, and deceit" (Schein, 1994, p. 140). Evidence can also be found in

Talmudic and Rabbinic literature for the moral degeneracy of gossip – directed here against

lashon ha-ra (evil tongue, hearsay, gossip), which is tantamount to denying the existence of

God. Equally, deterrents are apparent in Islam in which "gossip" is the nearest translation of

Al-Gibah. In these traditions, issuing and receiving gossip both represent a severe lapse in

conduct. Moralists and moral philosophers from the Middle Ages draw on this religious

register "expanding hints into doctrine", slowly turning gossip "from sin into solecism"

(Spacks, 1985, p. 28).

Gossip, as transgression of faith or etiquette was, and still is, adjudicated in moral terms.

Indeed, the denigration of contemporary gossip magazines follows this line. Recently in the

UK Guardian newspaper, Laura Barton admonished women for their consumption of

celebrity gossip magazines: "We need to nourish our minds, we need to recognize that if we

continue to feed ourselves with this bilge, this drivel, then we are imprisoning ourselves"

(2011). Employing a feminist critique first and foremost, Barton nevertheless draws on a

puritanical register (of course, many critics of militant feminism wouldn’t disentangle

feminism and puritanism).

Gossip is a concern for moralists because it can contain slander, betray secrets, and

penetrate privacy (Spacks, 1985, p. 33). Transparency can also betray secrets and penetrate

privacy, but avoids the moralist’s wrath because it is more universally applied. We are all, in

theory, equally subject to transparency’s gaze. And so the real transgression on gossip’s part

is that its flow is unregulated and inequitable. The content and circulation of gossip is based

on a series of individual and subjective decisions. E-transparency, by contrast, is seen as an

often automated system which operates according to disclosure rules (decisions) that have

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been made prior to the encounter with particular forms of data or information. The moral

certitude of the transparency movement – illustrated by Patrick Birkinshaw’s claim that

transparency constitutes a human right (2006: 47-57) – draws strength from the difference

between e-transparency’s apparently morally neutral mode of disclosure and the moral

infringements of other forms of disclosure.

b) Narrative-interpretive forms of disclosure exist on the periphery of legal practice

and/or can give rise to illegal practice

Legally (and this has ramifications for how they are perceived culturally) narrative-

interpretive modes of disclosure present concerns over reliability. In terms of what is

permissible in a court of law as evidence, hearsay is hotly contested. In the US, the Federal

Rules of Evidence define hearsay as a statement that "(1) the declarant does not make while

testifying at the current trial or hearing; and (2) a party offers in evidence to prove the truth

of the matter asserted in the statement" (2011). It is not permissible to a US court, though

there are a number of exceptions. The UK’s Criminal Justice Act 2003, however, established

a more flexible and discretionary approach to hearsay, "moving away from the strict

common law rule against the admission of hearsay evidence in criminal proceedings… [T]he

inclusion of relevant hearsay evidence [is promoted] on the basis that justice is not served if

important information is excluded for no good reason" (Crown Prosecution Service, no

date).7 The status of hearsay will no doubt go through further transformations in

subsequent years, but historically, gossip "has been a 'suspect' discourse, in the Anglo-

American tradition when brought to court. For, though there is no reason why secondhand

utterances are innately less likely to be truthful than those of persons present, this sort of

talk is imagined to pervert justice" (Gordon, 2001, p. 203). Of course, narrative-interpretive

forms of disclosure, particularly when presented in printed and published form, also appear

as matters warranting trial. Individuals and brands subject to media speculation, slander,

gossip and scandal, can sue for libel or defamation.8

Though conspiracy theories are often decried as seditious, in fact, in the US, the First

Amendment largely protects conspiracy theorists. Besides, the Sedition Act of 1918 was

repealed in 1920 (although other legislation, such as the 1940 Alien Registration Act, or

"Smith Act", continued to outlaw certain seditious behavior). In the UK, though seldom used,

sedition laws were only repealed in 2009. Thus, Jonah Goldberg, writing in the conservative

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National Review Online, might lament the "seditious dementia of [9/11] conspiracy theories"

(2006) but the legal allusion is only wishful thinking. Nevertheless, conspiracy theorizing is

seen by some concerned policy advisors as an incitement to illegal acts of extremist

violence; as the expression, that is, of a willingness to commit acts of an unlawful nature (see

Sunstein and Vermeule, 2008; Bartlett and Miller, 2010). They make a clear link between

discourse and action whereby the illegality of the action retroactively colors the legality of

the discourse.

Transparency has a distinct advantage with respect to legality for it arises from a juridical-

political tradition that considers it central to accountability at all levels of society. Recall the

famous phrase from U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis in an article he wrote

concerning transparency in the banking sector: "Sunlight is said to be the best of

disinfectants" (1913). It is a phrase from which US state "sunshine laws" get their name.

Today, government transparency often has to work within the framework of Freedom of

Information law. Debates about the legality of disclosure, taking privacy and confidentiality

concerns into serious consideration, are a daily part of any transparent organization. More

than this continuous and conscious display of law-abidance, however, we need to note

transparency’s law-enforcing effect. The publication of gifts to government officials by IPSA

in the UK, for example, might help to prevent undue influence. After all, the other half of

Brandeis’ statement is: "…And electric light the most efficient policeman" (1913).9

c) Narrative-interpretive forms of disclosure are speculative, subjective and, therefore,

unreliable

Acts of speculation, narration and interpretation, by necessity, move beyond the parameters

of empirical facts or ‘original’ events or texts fairly quickly. Speculation proposes a possible

outcome of an event or a hypothesis on the meaning of a text. Narrative organizes and

creates causal links between events. Interpretation reads an event or text in order, ideally,

to excavate meaning, though the inherent risk is that it invents meaning. A certain creative

‘disloyalty’ to the ‘original’ event or text, then, is necessary in these speculative, narrative

and interpretative endeavors. And while moral condemnation of such disloyalty is mitigated

by the legitimating strategies of more academic forms of speculation (in the guise of

theoretical physics, say) and hermeneutic interpretation (as the raison d’être of much

academic work particularly in the humanities), popular forms are not so fortunate. This is

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mainly because popular narrative-interpretive forms of disclosure like gossip and so forth

commit a double sin. Not only do they ‘disrespect’ the original event, text or fact by

embellishment, or by making unorthodox connections or conclusions, but they are seen to

be too subjective (in the non-philosophical understanding of that term). Narrative-

interpretive forms of disclosure are often considered a projection of the speakers’ inner

desires rather than an externally verifiable, accurate, pure or trustworthy communication.

Gossip and scandal might be fuelled by human malice while conspiracy theory can be the

result of psychological delusion (Showalter, 1997; Wood, 1982) or political will (Hofstadter,

1966). Use of emotives; evidence of individual motivation; the influence of human

psychology: all of these traits can work to undermine the perceived reliability of particular

disclosures. E-transparency, rather, is seen to deliver "original" data and information free

from human distortion and the attendant "risks" of re-presentation.

d) Narrative-interpretive forms of disclosure lack legitimacy

Heidegger, writing about "idle talk" – talk which circulates by "gossiping and passing the

word along" (1927/1962, p. 208) – points to its self-legitimating structure: "things are so

because one says so" (p. 212). With no recourse to a legitimating authority or principle, this

talk cannot claim legitimacy in the way that other statements, ideas, texts do. For similar

reasons, conspiracy theory is presented as the "bastard child" of reason, effective cognitive

mapping, politics, and interpretation. I will consider these further.

Karl Popper sees "the conspiracy theory of society" as an intellectual failing because it

cannot account for unintended consequences as other ways of understanding causality

might ([1945]/1966). Francis Wheen laments the "general retreat from reason" (2004, p.

12) that phenomena like conspiracy theories represent while Elaine Showalter demands

that academics use rationality to overpower the force of conspiracy theories and other

paranoid discourses (1997). Conspiracy theorizing is described by Fredric Jameson as a

"poor person’s cognitive mapping" (1988, p. 356) that represents a "degraded attempt –

through the figuration of advanced technology – to think the impossible totality of the

contemporary world system" (1991, p. 38). Michael Shermer (1997) regrets the way in

which conspiracy theory, among other fringe beliefs, as he sees it, has dumbed down politics

in the US. Warning of the perils of "overinterpretation" (1990) in his non-fiction, Umberto

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Eco physically punishes the narrator in his novel, Foucault’s Pendulum (1989), for not

adhering to consensus-bound interpretations.

Narrative-interpretive forms of disclosure are circulated and even celebrated in popular

culture for their capacity to entertain. Yet, entertainment value does not translate into

increased authority. Rather, it can confirm the illegitimacy of narrative-interpretive forms of

disclosure as they stack up on the side of the popular, the frivolous, the feminine, and the

fictional in the terms determined within a longstanding "culture war". Cultural studies has

explored the way such binaries works to discredit popular culture (e.g. Fiske, 1989;

Modeleski, 1986), and we can see a similar operation at work for these forms of popular

disclosure when pitted against state endorsed or culturally ratified forms of disclosure.

Such illegitimacy can work at an ideological-discursive level so that contentious ideas are

belittled as "just" conspiracy theory or gossip, or as the product of scandalmongers. Tony

Blair, for instance, dismissed the suggestion that war in Iraq was motivated by oil as a

"conspiracy theory" (see Tempest, 2003). This allusion allowed him to align dissent with a

stigmatized, inferior way of thinking. He was saying, if you don’t agree with the war, you are

a conspiracy theorist, you are not of sound mind and cannot interpret information in

rational ways. Your reasoning is illegitimate. In actuality, the role of oil as one, though not

the only, motivating factor in the invasion of Iraq is highly probable. The UK Independent

newspaper reports, "Plans to exploit Iraq's oil reserves were discussed by government

ministers and the world's largest oil companies the year before Britain took a leading role in

invading Iraq" (Bignell, 2011). Blair’s invocation of the conspiracy theory label sought to

discredit such contextual factors.

Against the backdrop of these apparently "unruly" forms of disclosure, transparency,

particularly e-transparency, promises to circumvent such issues. The moral certitude of the

transparency movement – which draws strength from e-transparency’s lawful character,

techno-neutrality, and politico-cultural legitimacy – situates e-transparency as the ideal tool

for democracy. E-transparency can eradicate barriers to participation, representation, and

equity without encountering the epistemological problems raised by narrative-interpretive

forms of disclosure.

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Questioning the opposition

A celebration of transparency surreptitiously assumes a consensus around the negative

qualities of narrative-interpretive disclosure. However, while normative understandings of the

latter marginalize or denigrate according to the criteria set out above, some academic readings

of such phenomena have detected more positive roles and consequences. These defenses fall

into three main categories: functionalist arguments that describe narrative-interpretive forms

of disclosure as vital to social cohesion (e.g. Gluckman, 1963); leftist defenses that appropriate

narrative-interpretive forms as subversive or resistant to the dominant ideology (e.g. Goodman

& Ben-Ze'ev, 1994); and liberal claims that narrative-interpretive expression represent and

reinforce a healthy democratic public sphere (e.g. Adut, 2008). Given that the rationale for

transparency is often made on the grounds that by fostering a culture of trust and

accountability it is inherently more in tune with the conditions of democracy, it is significant

that one defense of narrative-interpretive forms of disclosure relies on similar criteria. This

shared justification stems from their mutual status as disclosure irrespective of medium or

discursive mode. All disclosure can be drawn into this positive discourse if one configures the

availability of information in the public sphere a prerequisite for the discussion, debate, and

occasionally consensus that characterizes democratic process. This supposes that a mode of

disclosure, or mediation, is merely incidental. However, the premise of e-transparency is that

discursive or narrative mediation is a distortion that must be avoided if disclosure is to play a

productive role in the process of accountability. Transparency is necessary, so the logic follows,

in order to deliver information in an objective, clean, neutral format. Democracy thus becomes

associated not with the dissemination of information and ideas irrespective of transmission,

but on the quality or purity of the transmission.

Of course, it is not accurate to think of the difference between transparency and narrative-

interpretive forms of disclosure in terms of the delivery of a pure, unmediated truth on the one

hand and mediated, muddied fiction on the other. People gossip about real events; scandal is

often scandalous because it is true; conspiracies do happen (though not as often, perhaps, as

the number of conspiracy theories would lead us to believe). "Transparency is not synonymous

with truth" (Lord, 2006, p. 5) for it can reveal propaganda as easily as empirical facts.

Nevertheless, it is the narrative-interpretive forms, with their links to storytelling, that are

assumed to have an inherent fictionalizing tendency. Whereas gossip, scandal and conspiracy

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theory therefore turn people into fictional, objectified characters (Roland Barthes writes,

"Gossip reduces the other to he/she…The third person pronoun is a wicked pronoun" (1979, p.

185)), transparency is not perceived to have such transformative properties: it is an invisible

discourse because its mediation is obscured by its status as a cultural signifier of neutrality. It

is seen as not having a particular quality in and of itself but as, rather, merely the invisible

medium through which content is brought to our attention, into the visible realm.

These connotations are engendered in part by the scientific understanding of the transparent

as that which is invisible. Gases, that is, are transparent because wavelengths of visible light

can pass easily through their loosely arranged atoms. An emphasis on invisibility rather than

visibility is also at the heart of "transparency" in computational discourse. An application or

computational process is said to be transparent to the user when information is invisible

(Turilli & Floridi, 2009, p. 105). In both of these cases, however, information is invisible,

whereas in e-transparency, information is made visible by the invisible (by which we can

understand, neutral) process of transparency.

This vision of the pure medium delivering raw, self-evident, neutral data is inherent to the

advocacy of e-transparency. It is a vision that is reliant, to borrow a term from Barthes, on a

"transparency effect" – more commonly translated as "reality effect" (1986).10 While Barthes

employs the term to describe how realism works in historical discourse to produce the illusion

of a direct relationship between sign and referent, I draw on it here to recognize a similar

refusal "to assume the real as a signified" (1986, p. 140). In e-transparency, however, the

transparency/reality effect is achieved through a move away from narrative rather than, as

Barthes argues is the case for historical discourse, towards it in the form of descriptive fillers

(p. 141). In the context of e-transparency, it is an effect reliant upon the idea that data is self-

identical and self-coincident – that it is free of the temporal and spatial difference that comes

with iteration. It is also dependent upon the idea that data is free of the mediating and

distorting force of "narrative", understood in general terms as "story" or "account" (OED) (and

also in the manner it is often employed in cultural theory to indicate an account which is

infused with ideology). The implicit goal is a mode of disclosure and regulation that transcends

personal or ideological interpretation and avoids the inherent ‘risks’, or necessary possibilities,

that come with repetition (including misinterpretation and misunderstanding): a mode that is

not a secondary recounting or iteration, but, rather, a primary channeling.

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However, even at a simple level it’s clear that the business of representing information is never

neutral. Flyverbom et al have found that in released information, "there is always a perspective

implied if not explicitly offered: for example, in the selection of what counts as 'good

information'" (2011, p. 12). The representation of transparency as "passive information

provision" (p. 10) is misleading, they insist, because "transparency is a moving target shaped

by the interpretations, negotiations and enactments by legislators, regulators and other

agenda-setting stakeholders, in other words an arena of communication where ideals,

expectations and demands are continuously formulated, enacted and contested" (2011, p. 12).

Coming at the issue from a different but related angle, we could draw on Mary Poovey’s

research in which she shows how the historical separation of numerical data from

interpretation is the result of somewhat arbitrary decisions about representation made during

the history of knowledge-production rather than any inherent non-interpretive qualities of

data itself. She is interested in how numbers come to epitomize the modern fact, "because they

have come to seem preinterpretive or even somehow noninterpretive" (Poovey, 1998, p. xii).

Poovey finds to the contrary that "even the numbers are interpretive for they embody

theoretical assumptions about what should be counted, how one should understand material

reality, and how quantification contributes to systematic knowledge about the world" (1998, p.

xii). While e-transparency doesn’t just publish numerical data, the provision of datasets is a

central part of the open government vision, and the assumptions that Poovey identifies

concerning the "purity" of numbers echo the current cultural investment in e-transparency.

Not only can we question the non-interpretive properties of data but, when dealing with e-

transparency, we also need to recognize the mediated nature of data delivery through ICTs.

Modern capabilities of computers – particularly storage and analytics – might make (often real-

time) transparency of data possible, but they also shape via metadata the presentation and

consumption of that content. Gary Hall writes,

for all its associations with computer science, metadata is never neutral or objective.

Although the term ‘data’ comes from the Latin word datum, meaning ‘something given’,

data is not simply objectively out there in the world already provided for us. The specific

ways in which metadata is created, organized and presented helps to produce (rather

14

than merely passively reflect) what is classified as data and information – and what is not.

(2011)

Data-driven transparency, delivered through ICTs, determined by the rules of metadata, and

shaped through apps, therefore, is as mediated as any narrative-interpretive form of

disclosure. We can see this in material terms – in the political economy of ISPs, or a

comparative analysis of search algorithms to see the influence of commercial concerns – but

there is already a good indicator of the false nature of the opposition from an etymological

meditation. The Oxford English Dictionary describes narrative as "an account of a series of

events, facts, etc., given in order and with the establishing of connections between them". The

dictionary’s description of narrative as "an account" is illuminating for it points towards

"Counting, reckoning, enumeration; computation, calculation; (also) a style or mode of

reckoning; an amount established by counting" as well as its meaning as a relation of an event.

The word "tale" comes from the German, to count, and we still use the term “teller” to refer to a

bank cashier.

Moreover, our experience of digital data, as Lev Manovich (2001) points out, is often as

narrative – in the paths users create as they encounter and explore a database interface.

Manovich questions the opposition between databases and narrative because the centrality of

the former in contemporary culture has redefined the latter. He asks, ‘How can our new abilities

to store vast amounts of data, to automatically classify, index, link, search and instantly retrieve it

lead to new kinds of narratives?’ (2001, p.237 [italics in original]). Databases, therefore, don’t

deliver an alternative to narrative but modify traditional narrative to encompass non-linearity.

At both the etymological and material levels, then it is hard to separate data and narrative. This

might create uncertain ground for any transparency advocacy based upon such a division.

Once we begin to see that despite a long, historical prejudice, narrative-interpretive forms of

disclosure can be defended according to democratic criteria; that data is situated

etymologically at the heart of narrative (as an accounting for); that the separation of numerical

data and interpretation is not reflective of any inherent pre-interpretive quality of numbers;

and that data is as mediated as narrative and interpretation, indeed can be thought as a

modification of narrative, in material terms, the likelihood that e-transparency is the favored

mode of contemporary neoliberal democracy for ideological as well as practical reasons

15

increases. In fact, we can turn to ideology as another indicator of transparency’s non-neutrality

as well as a vector through which we can understand its ascendency. Moreover, to consider

transparency as a contingent, contextual, political choice is to foreground a discussion of what

other forms of transparency we might want to imagine, create, and strive for instead.

Transparency as ideological form

As Eric Jarosinski points out, Adorno offers the first critique of transparency on ideological

grounds: "For Adorno, 'society’s crystal clear order' offers a promise of insight that fails to

deliver anything more than ready-made enlightenment, blocking out a more engaging vision of

change that is still to come" (2009, p. 160). Believing in the promises of transparency (albeit a

different manifestation of transparency in Adorno’s 20th Century), false consciousness is more

likely to be succeeded by false or "ready-made enlightenment" than critical enlightenment.

Transparency curbs the utopian impulse by carefully circumscribing the parameters of change.

Today, it is transparency’s complicity with "a neoliberal ethos of governance that promotes

individualism, entrepreneurship, voluntary forms of regulation and formalized types of

accountability" (Garsten & Montoya, 2008, p. 3) that exposes it as an ideological formation. Of

primary importance to this relationship is the way in which transparency policies can facilitate

the flow of free market capital by making global fiscal transactions easier. It is also the case

that state forms of transparency might position citizens as individually culpable for the data

that transparency exposes. At the same time, the reduction of the citizen to a data subject

within a dataset makes him/her subject to rationalization techniques inherent to ‘audit culture’

(Strathern, 2000, p. 60). In fact, inventories legitimized through the project of transparency

might make processes of rationalization that privilege the market over other markers of

success more generally easier to implement. The correspondence between transparency and

neoliberalism is also evident in how the latter’s insistence on ‘choice’, even in the public sector,

makes a certain amount of transparency necessary – in order for citizens to make those choices

required of them begging the question whether transparency is enabling choice or if choice

necessitates transparency.

Such a critique resonates with the vision presented by Gilles Deleuze in his short but much-

cited essay, "Postscript on the Societies of Control". Although it would be a mistake to read this

essay as an account of distinct historical periods, Deleuze suggests a socio-institutional model

16

that more accurately describes contemporary experience over Foucault’s disciplinary societies.

Whereas disciplinary societies are characterized by a series of discrete and autonomous units

of confinement, societies of control are populated with dispersed mechanisms of power. E-

transparency is perhaps a clear expression of the control society because in opening up

government, it ensures that the business of governance is without boundaries or end. The

citizen-auditor is called upon to be perpetually vigilant, to be part of "a continuous network"

(Deleuze, 1992, p. 6), a key participant in this new informational capitalist-democracy. So while

on the one hand open government can be praised for engendering a move from administrative

to democratic accountability, this new requirement of citizen vigilance transfers responsibility

(to catch wrongdoing) onto the citizen. The contract of representational democracy is, in the

process, surreptitiously significantly modified.

The use of e-transparency in open government initiatives is not only shaping subjectivity in

terms of political responsibility and accountability. A report commissioned by the UK Cabinet

Office explicitly states that this release of data is intended to support the development of

"social entrepreneurs" (O’Hara, 2011, p. 5). The data public, therefore, is understood to be

constituted by vigilant auditors and "innovative" entrepreneurs. It is not simply a matter of

monitoring information and data but of making it productive. The entrepreneur is perhaps the

arch subject of the societies of control because, having moved beyond the spaces of enclosure,

s/he is by necessity an economic nomad following fluctuating capital streams and

cultural/consumer trends, required to be open to adaptation, reinvention, retraining in order

to increase his/her human capital.11 Entrepreneurial freedom, of course, comes without the

protections afforded to unionized labor, not to mention the security of guaranteed income and

predictable hours.

To be clear: new forms of emancipation are simultaneously forms of control. Adapting what

Deleuze writes about the introduction of new, dispersed forms of healthcare, including

anticipatory data-generated health risk assessments, over the enclosed environment of the

hospital, transparency might at first offer a "new freedom", but could represent a new

"[mechanism] of control that [is] equal to the harshest of confinements" (1992, p. 4). The

emancipatory qualities of e-transparency involve control, therefore, because of the vigilance

necessary to complete the democratic contract; the entrepreneurial labor and "technique of the

self" (Foucault, 1978-9/2008) required to transform it into a form of capital; and the way in

17

which it ensures citizens constitute its (albeit anonymized) statistical data (in, for instance, the

datasets of public service usage, crime statistics, and the census). This final point sees the

individual reduced to a "dividual" (Deleuze, 1992, p. 5): "a physically embodied human subject

that is endlessly divisible and reducible to data representations via the modern technologies of

control, like computer-based systems" (Williams, 2005). The operations of transparency in this

vision are far from neutral.

A model for our times?

With our reliance upon data and infomatics, transparency can be considered a model for our

times. As I have shown, however, the validity of that model (in its neoliberal and data-reliant

manifestation) is predicated upon questionable assumptions and exclusions. The complex

cultural codes working to sustain and legitimize the transparency effect of data-led e-

transparency, however, can and have been challenged. One such challenge is presented by the

assemblage WikiLeaks.

At first sight, WikiLeaks’ disclosures seem to be fully aligned with the liberal conception of

transparency. High profile Julian Assange defender, Jemima Khan, certainly described the

project in these terms when she considered WikiLeaks as offering "a new type of investigative

journalism" (quoted in Giri, 2010). Indeed, as Saroj Giri (2010) points out, the print media

outlets Assange collaborated with on the publication of the US diplomatic cables (November

2010) justified their relationship with WikiLeaks according to traditional liberal thinking

concerned with the public’s right to know. Assange himself has placed WikiLeaks within the

liberal tradition of free speech and a free press writing statements such as, "The swirling storm

around WikiLeaks today reinforces the need to defend the right of all media to reveal the truth"

(2010). And yet, what is interesting about WikiLeaks for the current article is the way in which

it has fused e-transparency and narrative-interpretive forms of disclosure. First, WikiLeaks

acknowledged the importance of interpretation and editing to shape the release of information

(particularly with regards to their “Collateral Murder” footage (April 2010), but also in the

collaboration with established media outlets to interpret, frame and mediate the content of the

diplomatic cables). Second, and more importantly, Assange’s whole vision of transparency is

fuelled by a conspiracy theory of power. In his essay, "State and Terrorist Conspiracies",

Assange professes to want to break the communicative links between, and therefore curb the

powers of, "conspiratorial" nation-states by creating distrust through leaked information

18

(2006). Inscribed within a narrative-interpretive mode, transparency is positioned not as the

tool of liberal democracy, but anarchism.

In light of this, we can recognize that WikiLeaks not only perhaps "challenged power by

challenging the normal channels of challenging power" (Giri, 2010), but it challenged an

implicit hierarchy of revelatory modes, showing that both forms are necessary for disclosure to

be able to do more than just fulfill a "right to know", if it is to play an active, political role.12

Narrative-interpretive forms address us more directly than the anonymous provision of data

through e-transparency. They demand discussion, dissensus and decisions – we have to

position ourselves in response to the content of these disclosures and the modes of disclosure

themselves – we are drawn into the conversation about them. When mobilized in tandem with

e-transparency, narrative-interpretive forms of disclosure might be able to wrest the technical

solution of transparency from a "post-political" consensus and reconfigure it as a properly

political tool.

The importance, then, of WikiLeaks for anyone interested in exploring "an alternative vision of

the good" (Brown, 2005, p. 59) beyond the tenets of liberal democracy, is that, in presenting us

with a hybrid form of disclosure, it modifies the ascendant understanding of transparency

which, while not synonymous with neoliberalism, certainly supports it in a number of ways.

WikiLeaks’ hybrid form does not subscribe to the well-behaved, containable, regulatory,

seemingly apolitical and neutral manifestation of transparency compatible with neoliberalism

today. As a consequence, WikiLeaks was castigated by many factions of the mainstream

transparency movement (for examples refer to Fenster, 2011, p. 16, fn. 61). The hybrid form of

disclosure is perhaps a necessary strategy in the quest to make transparency’s content visible

when so much of it is routine white noise. What form should e-transparency take? What

relationship should citizens have to it? How will it shape subjectivity and citizenship, and what

links will it have to the dominant ideology? These should be open questions. WikiLeaks is but

one experiment in hybrid disclosure. If we are going to position ourselves in relation to data

(rather than be positioned by it), if we favor explicitly political over technical solutions to

social problems, if we are going to be able to envisage a transparency worthy of democracy –

envisaged not as "an ambient milieu, as the natural habitat of postmodern individuality" but as

an arena of "struggles and sacrifices" (Ranciere, 1992, p.22) as well as decisions – there will

need to be other experiments too.

19

Narrative-interpretive modes of disclosure have been defended as potentially subversive or

resistant, for their attempt to articulate and keep in check the arrogation of power. These are

the qualities – these political qualities – that WikiLeaks added to the stabilizing, normative

function of neoliberal transparency. In common parlance, "radical transparency" signifies an

organization that implements total openness at all levels of operation. But we might want to

think about radical transparency in terms of politics rather than scale. "Radical transparency"

might then be envisaged as a mechanism able to subvert dominant attitudes towards

disclosure’s limited and prescribed role in the political sphere. I am not suggesting that

WikiLeaks embodies or practices this radical transparency. (Alasdair Roberts has pointed out

the errors of such a position (2012: 116-133).) Rather, WikiLeaks reminds us that there are

other possible transparencies out there. "Radical transparency" might, then, be a holding space

for something yet to come: an unsettling, perhaps, of what it means to "see through" and the

relationship between data, narrative, information, interpretation, and understanding. Might

not "radical transparency" involve workers and citizens in making decisions about what kind

of disclosure is the most effective in any given situation and the scope of socio-political change

disclosure can precipitate? After all, far too often disclosures are used to renew rather than

disrupt the political system. It might even involve the counterintuitive measure of withholding

information in certain circumstances – when we are called upon to respond to an auditing

exercise that we suspect is being implemented for less than transparent reasons – effectively

investing in secrecy over disclosure. Then radical transparency comes to look very different

from the ascendant vision of transparency we are currently being asked to ascribe to. "Radical"

indicates not more (of the same) transparency, but transparency rethought through a resistant,

critical methodology.

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Endnotes

25

1 Harry West and Todd Sanders’s edited collection proves a rare exception outside of policy literature. In their

introduction, they explicitly connect transparency and conspiracism: ‘No-one is more aware of conspiracy

theories … than the purveyors of global transparency discourse... Conspiracy ideas … are the raison d’être for

transparency claims’ (2003: 12).2 Transparency advocacy comes from a variety of sources – popular managerial literature such as The Naked

Corporation (Tapscott & Ticoll, 2003) calling for open business practices; guidelines promoting corporate social

responsibility; organizations like the International Monetary Fund and World Bank which position transparency

as a necessary condition for economic stability; NGOs like Transparency International as the main tool in their

fight against corruption; and lobbying groups such as the Sunlight Foundation campaigning for open,

accountable government.3 Much research has been conducted concerning the success or failure of individual transparency policies (see

Curtin & Meijer, 2006; Fung et al., 2007; Lord, 2006; Stasavage, 2006; Torfing et al., 2012).4 This critique of transparency is not intended to sideline the positive effects transparency policies have

implemented. Targeted, user-oriented, sustainable transparency policies have changed many institutional

practices – both in the public and private sectors – for the better. They are undoubtedly an important weapon in

the fight against corruption and exploitation. And yet, we have to acknowledge potential problems for an

outright endorsement including the following:

1) no matter how much transparency might call the official record into account, it could simply displace

certain conversations, deals and practices to a ‘shadow field’. In this scenario, commitment to

transparency is merely a rhetorical device, an investment in appearances rather than practice;

2) transparency might not produce the outcomes its advocates desire: this is particularly true in the case of

government wherein advocates claim transparency will increase trust in government and participation

in the democratic process (for skeptical commentaries see Roberts, 2006; Worthy, 2010);

3) at an ideological level, we may want to resist transparency (see below for a critique of transparency and

its relation to neoliberalism). 5 For example, the extensive 9/11 Commission has been praised for "encouraging or forcing the executive branch

to disclose information about an especially significant and controversial past event or future decision" (Fenster,

2008, p. 1239), but 9/11 conspiracy theories are, to many, just as persuasive as the Commissions’ conclusions.

Such "interference" with the transmission of both the Commission’s findings and the release of information it

encouraged is certainly seen as a problem by policy advisors. Cass Sunstein and Adrian Vermuele represent such

a position; they write, "The existence of both domestic and foreign conspiracy theories … [pose] real risks to the

government’s antiterrorism policies" (2008, p. 3).6 I have written about the negative characterization of gossip more fully in Birchall, 2006.7 The UK’s Criminal Justice Act 2003 defines hearsay as ‘a statement not made in oral evidence in the proceedings

that is evidence of any matter stated’ (section 114 (1) Criminal Justice Act 2003).8 Although it should be noted that while online defamation cases are on the rise (Dodd, 2011), libel and

defamation cases against large news outlets are in decline. A report in the New York Observer (Koblin, 2010)

claims that libel cases against Time Inc. are now virtually non-existent. This is for several reasons: first, the rise

of the Internet has meant that aggrieved parties are satisfied with corrections being made to online versions or

with the ability to publish their own story on a website; and second, ailing news organizations are putting less

resources into the kind of investigative journalism needed to produce risky stories, and are also much less

willing to defend themselves in court for financial reasons. Celebrities in the UK are increasingly likely to turn to

High Court injunctions or Privacy Law to prevent publication in the first place (Dodd, 2011).

9 Despite this lawful, moderate reputation, some forms of transparency can pose legal problems. WikiLeaks’

brand of transparency certainly divided the transparency community with many concerned over WikiLeaks’

apparent disregard for confidentiality and proper procedure. For example, Steven Aftergood, a leading American

researcher on policies concerning classification and secrecy, wrote, ‘WikiLeaks must be counted among the

enemies of open society because it does not respect the rule of law nor does it honor the rights of individuals’

(2010). More significantly, Obama’s administration, which had explicitly campaigned on the transparency ticket

before being in office and declared a commitment to transparency once in office, was undoubtedly disturbed by

WikiLeaks’ release of US diplomatic cables, despite their reliance on dismissals and humor to defuse the crisis. In

this case, transparency’s positive qualities are seen to be compromised by exposure to narrative-interpretive

forms of disclosure.10 Barthes’ l’effect réel is often translated as ‘the reality effect’, but here I am following Bodil Birkebæk Olesen

(2008) who draws on Wulf Kansteiner’s translation (1993). 11 Interestingly, Foucault, in a lecture series delivered over a decade before Delueze’s Societies of Control thesis,

considered the entrepreneurial form as one which outsourced regulation to the individual. As such, he saw it as a

technique of the self central to neoliberalism (1978-9/2008).12 We can dispute whether or not WikiLeaks has had a lasting effect. Alasdair Roberts, for one, feels that the

Afghan war logs and the US embassy cables had little impact on the public’s feelings about American foreign

policy (2012). Yet, the importance of a challenge needs to be judged not only in terms of a rather limited

understanding of immediate effects – to be measured by public opinion polls or regime change – but also in

terms of what new discursive and political openings are made possible. It is too early to decide the ‘effects’ of

WikiLeaks.