Information

InformationJohn Brissenden

23.02.10

This week and next

Think about how we use information in public relations

Think about the problems inherent in information

This week: information as currency and power

Next week: the problems of controlling information among digital networks

ReadingBenkler (2006), Chapter 9

Lievrouw & Livingstone (2006), Chapter 22

Weaver, Motion & Roper (2006): From Propaganda to Discourse (and Back again): Truth, Power, the Public Interest, and Public Relations, in L’Etang & Piezcka (Eds.) (2006), chapter 1Motion & Leitch (1996) A discursive perspective from New Zealand: another world view. Public Relations Review 22(3):297-309Motion & Leitch (2007) A toolbox for public relations: the oeuvre of Michel Foucault. Public Relations Review 33 (2007): 263-268

What is information?

“Data and ideas that are identifiable,

organised..., ...communicated, stored...and used in a

meaningful way.” Stevens (1986), in Lievrouw and Livingstone (2006): 451

“A matter of measuring signals.” (Shannon & Weaver,

1964 [1949]), ibid.

“Information goods”: content with an economic value

1: Information-embedded goods“Goods that are not

themselves information, but that are better, more plentiful, or cheaper because of some technological advance embedded in them or associated with their production.”

Benkler (2006): 311

2: Information-embedded tools

“Tools necessary for innovation.”

Benkler (2006): 312

E.g.: Enabling technologies for research; access to materials and compounds for

experimentation

3: Information

Raw dataScientific publicationNewsFactual reports

4: Knowledge

“The set of cultural practices and capacities necessary for processing the information into either new statements in the information exchange, or...for practical use of the information...to produce more desirable actions or outcomes from action.”

Benkler (2006): 313

Properties and problems of information

Rival

Excludable

Appropriable

Nonrival: Giving information to one

person does not reduce its availability to

othersNon-appropriable: I

still have the information after I have given it away

Non-excludable: there is nothing inherent in

information which makes it scarce or

unavailable

Asymmetric information

Information as a commodity

Power

Power is not a thing but a relation

Power is not simply repressive but it is productive

Power is exercised through the social, and is not merely a property of or

localised in the State

Power operates at the most micro levels of social relations and is omnipresent at

every level

The exercise of power is strategic and warlike

Power/Knowledge

“The exercise of power perpetually creates knowledge and, conversely,

knowledge constantly induces effects of power.” (1980)

Foucault does NOT say that knowledge is power, but they are inextricably linked

Individuals and organisations deploy various strategies to conform with,

circumvent or contest existing power/knowledge relations

Discourse provides the medium through which power/knowledge circulates

“The exercise of power perpetually creates knowledge and, conversely, knowledge constantly induces effects of power. The university hierarchy is only the most visible . . . and least dangerous form of this phenomenon. One has to be really naïve to imagine that the effects of power linked to knowledge have their culmination in university hierarchies. Diffused, entrenched and dangerous, they operate in other places than in the person of the old professor.”

Foucault (1980):52

Power/Knowledge: PR

Stakeholder

Corp., Inc.

ContactsCompany

dataLegal

knowledge

Consumer data and research

Truth and power/knowledge

Particular knowledges gain the status of truths via their relationship to power

eg Judges pronounce a person guilty; that verdict establishes their guilt; acceptance

of the verdict of judges reinforces the power of the legal system

Think about the news media’s dependence on “official sources” and its adherence to

the idea of objectivity

PR practitioners as discourse

technologists“Public relations practitioners can be seen to strategically

deploy texts in discursive struggles over sociocultural practices. The aim of such discursive struggles is to

maintain or to transform these sociocultural practices and the values and attitudes which support them and which

they embody. Public relations practitioners are thus viewed as discourse technologists who play a central role in the

maintenance and transformation of discourse.”

“Public relations practitioners, as discourse technologists, are actively involved in the research, redesign and training

dimensions of discursive struggles to maintain or transform sociocultural practices. They act on behalf of the

governments, corporations and social movements whose interests are embodied in or opposed to, existing

discourses.”

Motion & Leitch (1996): 298, 301