Change of State Information, Policy, and Power

by Braman, Sandra

• ISBN13: 9780262513241
• ISBN10: 0262513242
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-08-28
• Publisher: The MIT Press

Summary

As the informational state replaces the bureaucratic welfare state, control over information creation, processing, flows, and use has become the most effective form of power. In Change of StateSandra Braman examines the theoretical and practical ramifications of this "change of state." She looks at the ways in which governments are deliberate, explicit, and consistent in their use of information policy to exercise power, exploring not only such familiar topics as intellectual property rights and privacy but also areas in which policy is highly effective but little understood. Such lesser-known issues include hybrid citizenship, the use of "functionally equivalent borders" internally to allow exceptions to U.S. law, research funding, census methods, and network interconnection. Trends in information policy, argues Braman, both manifest and trigger change in the nature of governance itself. After laying the theoretical, conceptual, and historical foundations for understanding the informational state, Braman examines 20 information policy principles found in the U.S Constitution. She then explores the effects of U.S. information policy on the identity, structure, borders, and change processes of the state itself and on the individuals, communities, and organizations that make up the state. Looking across the breadth of the legal system, she presents current law as well as trends in and consequences of several information policy issues in each category affected. Change of Stateintroduces information policy on two levels, coupling discussions of specific contemporary problems with more abstract analysis drawing on social theory and empirical research as well as law. Most important, the book provides a way of understanding how information policy brings about the fundamental social changes that come with the transformation to the informational state.

Author Biography

Sandra Braman is Professor in the Department of Communication, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She is the editor of Communication Researchers and Policy-Making (MIT Press, 2003).

Table of Contents

List of Tables	p. xv
Preface	p. xvii
Note on Text	p. xix
Acknowledgments	p. xxi
An Introduction to Information Policy	p. 1
Forms and Phases of Power: The Bias of the Informational State	p. 9
Information	p. 9
Theoretical Pluralism	p. 10
A Taxonomy of Definitions	p. 11
Using the Taxonomy	p. 20
Power	p. 23
The Problematics of Power	p. 24
Forms of Power	p. 25
Phases of Power	p. 27
The State	p. 28
Problematics of the State	p. 29
The Nation	p. 30
The State	p. 32
A Typology of States by Form of Power	p. 35
Information Policy for the Informational State	p. 37
Bounding the Domain: Information Policy for the Twenty-First Century	p. 39
The Definitional Problem	p. 40
History	p. 41
Premodern Information Policy	p. 42
Early Modern Information Policy	p. 44
Modern Information Policy	p. 45
The Contemporary Environment	p. 48
International Information Policy	p. 54
Confounding Factors	p. 56
Technology-Based Problems	p. 56
Practice-Based Problems	p. 61
Policy Process-Based Problems	p. 62
Issue Area-Based Problems	p. 66
Definitional Approaches	p. 67
Lists	p. 67
Legacy Legal Categories	p. 68
Industries	p. 68
Social Impact	p. 69
The Information Production Chain	p. 69
Bounding the Domain of Information Policy: An Analytical Approach	p. 73
The Policy Issue and the Information Production Chain	p. 74
Link Analytically to Related Information Policy Issues	p. 75
Examine the Social Impact of Current Policy	p. 76
Develop Policy Recommendations	p. 77
Translate Recommendations into the Terms of Legacy Law	p. 77
Information Policy: Constitutive and Constitutional	p. 77
Constitutional Principles and the Information Spaces They Create	p. 79
The Principles	p. 81
Principles in the Constitution	p. 81
The First Amendment	p. 85
Other Constitutional Amendments	p. 87
The Penumbra of the Constitution	p. 89
Constitutional Information Spaces	p. 89
Public versus Private	p. 90
Spaces Defined by Medium	p. 96
The Spaces of Expression	p. 99
The Spaces of Content	p. 105
The Spaces of Content Production	p. 111
Spaces Defined by Audience	p. 113
Spaces Defined by War and Peace	p. 114
Constitutional Principles and Their Limits	p. 115
Information Policy and Identity	p. 117
Identity Theory	p. 117
Individual Identity	p. 121
Libel	p. 121
Privacy	p. 126
Identity of the Informational State	p. 138
The Census and Other Statistics	p. 138
Mapping	p. 144
Official Memory	p. 148
Mediating the Identities of the Individual and the Informational State	p. 155
Citizenship	p. 155
Language	p. 160
Education	p. 162
Mutually Constituted Identities of the Individual and the Informational State	p. 166
Information Policy and Structure	p. 167
Theories of Structure	p. 167
Information Policy and Social Structure	p. 173
Antitrust	p. 173
Copyright	p. 177
Patents	p. 187
Association	p. 191
Information Policy and Technological Structure	p. 193
Interconnection	p. 193
Participatory Design	p. 197
Universal Service	p. 199
Information Policy and Informational Structure	p. 205
Access to Government Information	p. 205
Accounting Systems	p. 208
Metadata	p. 215
Information Policy and New Structural Formations	p. 219
Information Policy and Borders	p. 221
Border Theory	p. 221
Borders of Social Systems	p. 227
Geopolitical Borders	p. 228
Trade in Services	p. 234
Borders of the Technological System	p. 239
Network Borders	p. 240
Export Controls	p. 244
Informational Borders	p. 248
Political Speech	p. 248
Arms Control Treaties	p. 250
Importing Knowledge Workers	p. 254
Border Rhetoric versus Border Realities	p. 255
Information Policy and Change	p. 259
Theories of Change	p. 259
Information Policy and Change in Social Systems	p. 264
Freedom of Speech versus National Security	p. 265
The Vote	p. 274
Information Policy and Change in Technological Systems	p. 278
Direct Funding of Research	p. 281
Tax Credits	p. 287
Procurement	p. 288
Information Policy and Change in Information Systems	p. 293
The Arts	p. 293
Government Dissemination of Information	p. 302
Ambivalence and Inconsistency	p. 310
Information, Policy, and Power in the Informational State	p. 313
The Social Impact of Information Policy Trends	p. 314
The Current Status of Constitutional Information Policy Principles	p. 321
The Nature of Information Policy	p. 324
Policy and Social Theory	p. 326
The Future of the Informational State	p. 327
Bibliographic Essays	p. 329
Notes	p. 329
An Introduction to Information Policy	p. 329
Forms and Phases of Power: The Bias of the Informational State	p. 335
Bounding the Domain: Information Policy for the Twenty-first Century	p. 346
Constitutional Principles and the Information Spaces They Create	p. 349
Information Policy and Identity	p. 352
Information Policy and Structure	p. 369
Information Policy and Borders	p. 394
Information Policy and Change	p. 405
References	p. 419
Index	p. 529
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