Research Handbook on Information Policy

This comprehensive and innovative Research Handbook tackles the pressing issues confronting us at the dawn of the global network society, including freedom of speech, government transparency and the digital divide.   Representing a milestone in information policy research, this new volume edited by Alistair Duff brings together leading contributors from a wide range of disciplines to discuss important topics such as genetic information, news and privacy, and provides case studies on cyber harms, freedom of information and national digitization policy. Engaging with controversial problems of public policy including freedom of expression, copyright and information inequality, the Research Handbook on Information Policy offers a well-rounded exploration of the history and future of this vital field.   Systematically addressing both general theory and specific issues, as well as providing international perspectives, this Research Handbook will be of particular interest to academics and students in the disciplines of information science, journalism and media studies, politics, sociology, philosophy and law.

Table of Contents:
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

About the Author :
Edited by Alistair S. Duff, Visiting Scholar, Internet Interdisciplinary Institute (IN3), Open University of Catalonia, Spain and Emeritus Professor of Information Policy, Edinburgh Napier University, Scotland

Review :
‘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.’ ‘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.’ '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.'