Leaks, transparency and power. Wikileaks

Journal title SOCIOLOGIA DEL DIRITTO
Author/s Salvatore Poier
Publishing Year 2011 Issue 2011/1 Language Italian
Pages 16 P. 107-122 File size 126 KB
DOI 10.3280/SD2011-001005
DOI is like a bar code for intellectual property: to have more infomation click here

Below, you can see the article first page

If you want to buy this article in PDF format, you can do it, following the instructions to buy download credits

Article preview

FrancoAngeli is member of Publishers International Linking Association, Inc (PILA), a not-for-profit association which run the CrossRef service enabling links to and from online scholarly content.

The author sets out to demonstrate how the case of Wikileaks - and of its founder and spokesman Julian Assange - exploits the topic of the security of information in the web to create what is defined here as a "concretion of power". By generating a climate of suspicion and paranoia, Wikileaks sets out to consolidate its own credibility and legitimacy by public opinion, although it does so without furnishing any certainty about its own justness and equity. This not only creates a degree of scepticism - itself of major significance in Wikileaks’ relations with the authorities - but also forces it to adopt an antagonist stance vis-à-vis constituted authority, for the sole purpose of legitimising an alternative form of authority that is in the process of taking shape, with the paradoxical result that it puts the freedom of information at risk.

Keywords: Wikileaks, Technology and society, Freedom of information, Formation of consensus, Concretion of power, Manners of exercising power

Salvatore Poier, Fughe di notizie, trasparenza e potere. A proposito di Wikileaks in "SOCIOLOGIA DEL DIRITTO " 1/2011, pp 107-122, DOI: 10.3280/SD2011-001005