Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
  1. Home
  2. Publications
  3. Publishing partners
  4. Facet Publishing
  5. Content Listing

Refine listing

Refine listing

Access:
Content type:
Publication date:
Apply   From and To filters
Subject: Show more
Journals Show more
Publishers: Show more
Societies Show more
Series: Show more
Collections: Show more

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
Cancel
×

6023 results in Facet Publishing

Page 247 of 302

  • 6 - Some new business ideas in the HSS publishing space: what may librarians expect?

    • By Frances Pinter, Publisher at Bloomsbury Academic, a new imprint recently launched by Bloomsbury Publishing, specializing in humanities and social sciences at the tertiary level.
  • Edited by Sue McKnight
  • Book:
    Envisioning Future Academic Library Services
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    20 April 2010, pp 87-100

  • Summary

    Introduction

    Academic publishers don't like edited volumes. They believe that libraries are more likely to purchase single-authored volumes instead. They groan when academics come along with proposals for edited volumes. Sometimes these are accepted as a tactic to catch the editor and turn him or her into an author of a book-length work that conventional wisdom says will sell more copies. The sprat to catch a mackerel. However, there are some topics that require a breadth of knowledge that surpasses the experience and wisdom of any particular individual. The contents of this book, for instance, would have been impossible for one individual to cover with the depth and experience of the contributors assembled here. And even if such a paragon of wisdom were to exist, by the time the relevant data was assembled, the book would be out of date.

    We are all, writers and readers, grappling to understand the fastmoving environment in which we live and operate. Some try to preserve old world virtues, whilst others are steaming ahead into uncharted waters, creating new models and methods – often with unforeseen consequences. The purpose of this chapter is to highlight some of the challenges facing traditional scholarly publishers as they've tried to adapt to the new digital environment. It aims to map out some key concerns from a variety of perspectives and then indulge in some blue-sky thinking as to how the future might look. My thoughts are informed by our attempts at Bloomsbury Academic to build a new business model with flexible licensing practices at its core. It intends to make the best use of both old and new media as they co-exist in the very unstable period of transition that we are in today.

    Ring-fencing the discussion

    The scope of this chapter is limited to a very specific area of academic publishing: library collections – the prime venue (whether physical or virtual) where scholars and students find content. It deals with humanities and social science (HSS) books, or the ‘long form publication’ as some refer to books in the online environment. Reference will be made to scientific, technical and medical (STM) and professional publishing. Developments in the scholarly journal world do, of course, have implications for the future of the book.

  • 8 - Knowledge management, universities and libraries

    • By Helen Hayes, spent 10 years at the senior executive level of two major research universities and 20 years in library management. She was Vice- Principal for Information (1999–2003) at the University of Melbourne, Philip G. Kent, University Librarian at the University of Melbourne.
  • Edited by Sue McKnight
  • Book:
    Envisioning Future Academic Library Services
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    20 April 2010, pp 119-144

  • Summary

    Introduction

    In this century of creativity and ideas, the most valuable resources available to any organizations are human skills, expertise and relationships. Knowledge Management is about capitalizing on these precious assets in a systematic fashion.

    Geisler and Wickramasinghe (2009)

    The term ‘knowledge management’ became popular in the 1990s. This quote highlights the human and organizational aspects of the concept and the benefit of the approach for improving innovation and productivity. Knowledge has contributed to human existence since the beginning of time and it has been at the heart of universities since their foundation. Lee (2005) notes that in 1965 management-thought leader Drucker postulated that knowledge would replace machinery, land and labour as a primary source of production. The knowledge economy and growth of knowledge workers evidence this trend. The core strength of knowledge management is in knowledge sharing that leads to innovation, change and improvement.

    In the 21st century we have cause to reassess the concept, particularly in the higher education environment. Has knowledge management delivered all that was promised in the early hype? Libraries and technology have changed significantly since the early 1990s. Have libraries and technology delivered as expected against the knowledge management agenda, and what lessons have we learnt? This chapter examines the current status of knowledge management and its role in higher education and libraries. Drawing on experience at the University of Melbourne and beyond, we suggest that knowledge management principles are still manifest today. Following on from the initial hype, knowledge management is embedded in many activities that perhaps don't acknowledge the label.

    Knowledge management

    Knowledge management defined

    In 2003 Standards Australia brought together practitioners from a variety of disciplines to develop an interim Australian knowledge management standard. This acknowledged that no single discipline owned knowledge management. The definition embodied in the 2005 standard is holistic:

    A trans-disciplinary-approach to improving organisational outcomes and learning through maximising the use of knowledge. It involves the design, implementation and review of social and technological activities and processes to improve the creating, sharing and applying or using of knowledge. Knowledge management is concerned with innovation and sharing behaviours, managing complexity and ambiguity through knowledge networks and connections, exploring smart processes, and deploying people-centric technologies.

    (Standards Australia, 2005)

  • 7 - Loosely joined: the discovery and consumption of scholarly content in the digital era

    • By Paul Coyne, Vice-President of Innovation for Emerald Group Publishing Limited, a leading publisher of management research.
  • Edited by Sue McKnight
  • Book:
    Envisioning Future Academic Library Services
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    20 April 2010, pp 101-118

  • Summary

    Introduction

    The library has been a focal point for innovation in digital services since the advent of micro-computing and, latterly, the web. Technology in the library is not new; nor are concerns about the role of technology in the library. However, the advent of the internet, the growth of social networks and the increasingly mobile nature of digital technologies pose new and important challenges and opportunities for academic libraries in how they manage the abundance of information and make it available.

    Academic libraries are having to respond to the needs of a new generation of ‘digital natives’, who see access to social software as a basic human right, yet the need to preserve privacy, reliability and accountability remains fundamental to the sustainability of such institutions.

    This chapter will explore the recent history of technological advances in the library and show how the early theoretical ‘memex’ system proposed by Vannevar Bush in 1945 (Bush, 1945) is only now becoming a reality, with the advent of cloud computing. It will show how the ability to link and access data, increased expectations, a shift to user-centred services and a change in how library space is used are leading to a fundamental restyling of libraries, to a point where Web 2.0 technologies are becoming central to their function rather than add-on facilities.

    The concept of Library 2.0 is still not well formed, but it is providing a framework for understanding that adaptability and flexibility are essential to ensuring that academic libraries remain central to the learning experience, provide open access for users and protect and promote quality authorship.

    Big, bigger, invisible!

    It is commonly asserted that the digital era has brought new challenges and opportunities to the fore. However, problems of growth and the advancement of technology have been identified for some time. In his 1983 paper, James Thompson described the ‘End of Libraries’ and pointed to advances in micro-computing that then provoked anxiety, and questioned the purpose of the library and the role of the librarian in the electronic age.

  • 11 - Adding value to learning and teaching

    • By Sue McKnight, International leader in libraries and eLearning. She is Director of Libraries and Knowledge Resources at Nottingham Trent University in the UK.
  • Edited by Sue McKnight
  • Book:
    Envisioning Future Academic Library Services
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    20 April 2010, pp 197-216

  • Summary

    Introduction

    The reputation of the academic library has long been associated with research and scholarly publishing, and its role in supporting under - graduate and postgraduate teaching programmes has almost been assumed. This chapter highlights the significant contributions made by academic libraries in support of learning and teaching and explores issues associated with retaining and enhancing these roles in the future. The intention of this chapter is to inspire creative thinking about what future academic library services to support learning and teaching could be like.

    Today's academic libraries exist within a changing landscape of traditional on-campus and virtual university activity. The entire university is undergoing significant change. Universities are rapidly introducing blended mode (online activities and resources complementing face-toface lectures) and wholly online learning in addition to the traditional face-to-face teaching. Library services have to adapt to these new modes of delivery. Libraries also have to develop new services to respond to the changing student cohorts that result from these new learning and teaching opportunities.

    Other chapters in this book discuss the challenges of meeting the new digital research agenda; issues to be faced when considering the physical space of the academic library of the future; the impact of Web 2.0 and Library 2.0. Although these topics are directly related to supporting scholarship and learning and teaching, they have been excluded here.

    Academic libraries today

    The Society of College, National and University Libraries (SCONUL) in the United Kingdom established a Learning and Teaching Task and Finish Group in 2008 to scope the principal areas of activity where university libraries contribute to, influence and impact on learning and teaching activities. The group consisted of representatives from a number of SCONUL groups and from the Higher Education Academy. The SCONUL Executive felt that although there was clear evidence of the value adding of academic libraries in support of research, there was less qualitative and quantitative evidence of their role in supporting learning and teaching.

    The Task and Finish Group presented its findings at SCONUL's Summer Conference, convened in Bournemouth from 10 to 12 June 2009 (McKnight, 2009). It was identified that academic libraries add value for a large number of stakeholders in relation to learning and teaching: academic staff, students, the higher education institution, parents, employers, professional associations, library and information science educators and government bodies.

  • 2 - The delete generation: how citizen-created content is transforming libraries

    • By Penny Carnaby, New Zealand's National Librarian and Chief Executive of the National Library of New Zealand, a position she has held since 2003.
  • Edited by Sue McKnight
  • Book:
    Envisioning Future Academic Library Services
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    20 April 2010, pp 15-30

  • Summary

    Our world is changing

    There is a grass-roots-led revolution happening in communities right around the world and it's about to get a whole lot noisier. It is a revolution challenging established knowledge systems and practices. Above all, it is shaking the very foundations of information management and professional practice in libraries throughout the world. It is a citizen-created revolution, one that puts the content creator at centre stage. Established professional practices are expanding to new horizons and opportunities. And the once sacrosanct and established body of knowledge is now much more blurred, with educators, information and communications technology (ICT) specialists and, increasingly, individuals shaping the world of librarians and libraries in an unprecedented way. Alongside this people-led revolution we have a further challenge, in that every second of every minute of the day people are deleting their history, their thoughts and arguments, which these days are invariably presented in digital form.

    Given the seismic changes for the profession, this is not a time for professional complacency, nor is it a time to feel anything but excited. With the new knowledge wave sweeping the globe, it would be natural for the library profession to ask: ‘Are we prepared and engaged boldly enough to effectively capitalize on this potentially transformative opportunity?’

    How well is the library profession really responding?

    If we had to rate our response to these changes, a tough but fair assessment would be that the profession ‘has done quite well’ internationally. Certainly, we have responded to the Web 2.0 world, with its emphasis on social networking and citizen-created content. We know and talk about ‘widgets’ at www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Widget and ‘mashups’ at www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mashup and we understand the value of reusing and repurposing content. While we may not all be ecstatic about the burgeoning use of Wikipedia at www.wikipedia.org as a key reference source, rather than a more traditional and authoritative source such as Britannica at www.britannica.com, we can say with some confidence that the profession generally ‘gets’ it.

  • 10 - The leadership of the future

    • By Liz Wright, founding director of two international leadership development consultancies, The Leadership Cafe and People First International, based in the UK and Melbourne, Australia.
  • Edited by Sue McKnight
  • Book:
    Envisioning Future Academic Library Services
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    20 April 2010, pp 169-196

  • Summary

    The slot in culture that I'm most closely associated with is one in which charlatans declare that they know the future. My job is to sit near that slot and when people approach me I say, ‘Only charlatans say they really know the future’.

    William Gibson (2007)

    Introduction

    We live in an age of uncertainty and widespread turbulence, where ‘the rate of change is the biggest change’ we face (Brockman, 2004), yet where our ability to predict and prepare for the future has never been more important to the survival of our organizations and our endeavours.

    Whoever can most accurately predict the future can create a future ready workforce, adapt organizational systems, reconstruct processes that interface better with clients and stakeholders, and generally rethink their product, their production methods, their supply chain, their mode of product delivery and their product marketplace before their hungry competitors. Strategic and operational innovation is a key to competitive success in the 21st century: effective creation and leadership of the cultures that create innovation are vitally important. This applies in an academic library context as well as in the commercial sector.

    Leaders need to anticipate the future. As well as helping us to prepare for the future, this type of focus helps us to make sense of the present: ‘A global futures perspective can help leaders make sense out of the chaotic patterns of change in the external world’ (Johansen, 2009). Yet Kouzes and Posner (2009) comment that being forward looking is the one leadership competence that leaders today are least capable of demonstrating. We must rectify that. Leading with an eye firmly fixed on the future, ‘future watching’ for new ideas, directions, trends, inventions and models, must become a thoroughly widespread capability, practised continually across the organization through every means possible, if organizations are to compete and innovate successfully.

    Many of the innovations of the future are visible in the green shoots of the present. For some proactive, far-sighted organizations, new forms of leadership are already here; for most, they will be here within the next 5–10 years, for as the visionary writer William Gibson famously commented, ‘the future is already here – it's just not evenly distributed’ (Gibson, 1999).

  • 3 - Information policy and the public sphere

  • from Part 1 - Contexts for information policy
  • Ian Cornelius
  • Book:
    Information Policies and Strategies
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    23 March 2010, pp 43-62

  • Summary

    DISCUSSION OF THE information society idea and information policy gave us the idea about weak and strong theories of information policy, and also the ideas of autonomy for information policy and the operational frameworks for them. The idea of the public sphere is so closely identified with the exchange of information and the rules governing it that information policy must seem either redundant, because the public sphere is a socially and historically determined environment that itself constitutes the rules for information exchange, or it must seem that the public sphere legitimates a regime of information policy to sustain its existence. This divergence we will unravel later. At present we just need to identify some of the characteristics of the public sphere and some of the arguments about its nature.

    We are all familiar with public discussion of topical issues, be they international or national political questions, the world economy, questions of social norms and expectations, or disease, war, education – in fact all the issues of modern life. We are also used to ceaseless coverage of leisure activities in the media – sport, music, films, even books, and the lives of celebrities. Many of us are now also daily consumers of more private information that we individually put into a public arena, or make publicly accessible, through social networking media like Facebook, Twitter and so on. This volume of publicly accessible information is a recent phenomenon that poses and faces several threats. One threat, mentioned in Chapter 1, is to personal privacy as we disclose so much about ourselves. Another more recent potential threat is to the existence of the institutional forms through which we are accustomed to getting our public discussions – the serious newspapers and television programmes. Many of these depend on advertising revenue and now face closure as two forces combine to assail their revenue. First, the current economic downturn, which is diminishing advertising budgets and revenues, and this is escalating the impact of, second, a more long term decline in advertising as many staple sources of small town and national newspapers find alternative and cheaper ways to advertise through the internet. Strange as it may seem now, the forces that controlled advertising have been identified by the major author of ideas about the public sphere as the primary cause of corruption in the public sphere.

  • 4 - Information rights and information policy

  • from Part 1 - Contexts for information policy
  • Ian Cornelius
  • Book:
    Information Policies and Strategies
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    23 March 2010, pp 63-82

  • Summary

    INFORMATION POLICY AS an issue of rights raises a completely different set of questions that lie outside the framework we have so far considered. Until now we have looked at information policies as parts of larger social forces and movements or as things that stand on their own within the structure of each society. If we look at rights we find that the standard statements about human rights include certain items that we can identify as information rights. No one has looked at information rights independently of other rights and it is not clear that a distinction between various sorts of rights can be made in that way. For example, most statements of rights include a right to freedom of religious belief or practice. This must include, for those religions that use them, the right to use their particular sacred documents. So is freedom of religion an information right? Most people would consider it as a sort of right that stood on its own rather than being one of a group of other rights.

    There is also the separate question of how we treat religious claims to the unquestionable status of their own central documents – mostly we do not privilege documents or their contents, so are we inventing a privileged status for religious documents, and does that status subtend from currently practised religions only – in other words is it dependent on the existence of living practitioners – or are all religious documents of all known religions past and present included? If we extend the notion of what counts as a document to include various artefacts with religious or other significance we find that the idea of rights must become very extensive. Commonly rights, especially when expressed as human rights, are held to exist for living humans, and the rights associated with them are cited as rights for any human who happens to be living. So, the right to freedom of expression must exist even if no human being is currently seeking to exercise that right, as must the right to privacy and the right to have certain sorts of information – for example, the right to know of any charges brought against you, and the right to know who your accusers are. These are rights about information too.

  • 2 - Globalization and information societies

  • from Part 1 - Contexts for information policy
  • Ian Cornelius
  • Book:
    Information Policies and Strategies
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    23 March 2010, pp 27-42

  • Summary

    WHEN WE SPEAK of globalization we should understand exactly how the term is being employed, as this will affect our understanding of how information policies should be shaped, understood or changed. Asimilar caution applies to our use of the terms public sphere and information society.

    Globalization can be used to describe a recent phenomenon that has transformed much of international life, or at least has transformed much discussion about the impact globally of changes in the world economy and especially in financial services. If the term really is used to describe these transformations it should be a shorthand for a very complex set of changes, and it might be more common to speak of subsets of the overall phenomenon that relate to particular sectors. We are immediately in territory where extreme care is advised. Such descriptions, and we would want to know that they are accurate and comprehensive, may indeed describe current changes or conditions, but the image so created will predispose us to select certain policy options in a very wide range of sectors. Any description will seek the authority of accuracy and comprehensiveness but may also seek the persuasiveness of being predictive as well as explanatory: our simple term ‘globalization’ suddenly becomes something close to a model and goes well beyond being a mere description.

    A second temptation, beyond accepting a plausible model of recent world changes, is to accept that the term, in this case ‘globalization’, but it might also be ‘information society’, goes well beyond being a mere model to explain current changes and predict future movements. It is actually a concept that embraces far more than changes in volume or direction and in fact amounts to a substantive qualitative change in our society across the globe. When ‘globalization’ is used like this we are being asked to accept that models, understandings, explanations and expectations are to be jettisoned in favour of a new understanding not only of the situation as it is, but also of how the interplay of economic, cultural, social, political and financial forces will work in future and what substantial differences we must accept as the basis for our own future actions and decision making in consequence.

  • Part 2 - Information policy sectors

  • Ian Cornelius
  • Book:
    Information Policies and Strategies
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    23 March 2010, pp 83-86

  • Summary

    THE DISCUSSION IN preceding chapters about the operating context for information policies shows that much depends on how you see that context, both for an understanding of what information policies can do and for generating ideas about what they might do. The final examination of human rights in information also showed that where law brings them into existence information policies, both generally and in particular sectors, do exist and we must recognize them. Even if a country has no law about, say, intellectual property ownership, there is still that set of human rights principles that can be appealed to as an argument that morally and inherently such rights do exist and this can act as a spur to those who want to campaign for legislation. The focus on what exists, in the moral imagination or in enforceable laws, brings us back to consider what happens in particular sectors, and the debate about the effects of the current state of law and custom and its enforcement and how things should change, or can proceed.

    In the following chapters we will look at four areas of activity: censorship and freedom of expression, privacy and data protection, freedom of information, and intellectual property. This is not an exhaustive list but it will serve us with examples that cover the points that need to be made about strategies and policy development. In examining individual sectors we will not be looking for comprehensive statements of the current state of law or practice; these are well covered in other excellent works that relate to particular jurisdictions.

    The points that need to be uncovered here are those that indicate the range of possibilities, the history of practice, and the basis for arguments about what could or should be done. Knowing what an information policy should look like, what it should cover and contain, depends in part on understanding the operating context and the theoretical underpinnings that we have already considered, but it also depends on knowing the range of what is possible and what effects various policy instruments will have on daily life.

  • Part 1 - Contexts for information policy

  • Ian Cornelius
  • Book:
    Information Policies and Strategies
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    23 March 2010, pp 19-26

  • Summary

    RARELY DOES ANY information issue arise that is divorced from any connection with other questions. Even with seemingly clear information issues like censorship, the control of content, the context is critical. How critical will become apparent when we consider international information rights.

    Understanding the international contexts

    Understanding the contexts is important if we are to comprehend the total information picture, and important if we are to analyse what information policies and strategies should be. Let us start with two simple statements. First, information issues are about utterances, but they are also about ideas. Second, the current information context is strongly influenced by international trade and the internationalization of technology through global provision of access to communication media. We need ways of understanding these and there are three that we will discuss in Part 1:

  • ■ the idea of an information society and its impact on the regulation of information

  • ■ the idea of a public sphere in which ideas are communicated and messages exchanged

  • ■ the idea of information rights.

    • Let us consider first the association between utterances and ideas. We cannot separate any statement from the medium it appears in, and we cannot isolate a statement in any medium or format from all other forms of that statement, or the context in which it acquires meaning. In the previous chapter the instance of separating the book from the film or the web page was mentioned, but we must go further and identify the social attitude towards some texts – sacred texts or legal testimony, for example – and the process by which a document can appear before you. The newspaper in your hand is a by-product of a long sequence of actions by which journalists observe events, write up or compose copy, perhaps including not only a description of the event but also some commentary and analysis, and send that copy electronically to the newspaper office where decisions about the content of the next issue and each individual page are made. Then pages are laid out, there may be decisions to excise some content and include local specific content for regional issues, and the electronic tape is distributed to printing outlets where the paper is finally produced, distributed and sold.

  • Preface

  • Ian Cornelius
  • Book:
    Information Policies and Strategies
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    23 March 2010, pp xi-xiv

  • Summary

    THIS IS AN introductory book about information policy. It takes the form of a discussion of the issues that affect the determination of what policy should be, and a discussion of which mechanisms give effect to the intended policy. The aim of the book is to take readers to the point where they can develop the arguments that will lead them to determination of what information policy should be, and where they can develop appropriate policies for the environment they are operating in. This is not a description or explanation of what policies or regulations currently are, or should be, in any jurisdiction. Nor is it a legal or political science or sociological text book, or a review of existing literature. Readers wanting accounts of current law or practice should turn to any of the wide range of excellent studies available. References in the text have been kept to an absolute minimum, and the bibliography is very small. If you want to immerse yourself in reading about any of the issues raised in this book just open a newspaper, or watch the television, where on almost any day you will find matters that involve the generation, transfer, use, storage or retrieval of information and the policy issues that govern them.

    This book will be of interest to anyone concerned with information policy. It is relevant to librarians because it deals with issues of censorship and intellectual property. Other readers will find it useful because, although the book does not take the place of dedicated works on any aspect of information policy, it will guide all readers through the process of identifying exactly what they want policy to be and also through the stages of analysis and strategy formation.

    The book will also appeal to another type of reader, those whose interest lies in understanding the larger processes at work in an information society. The way information policy interacts with broad conceptualizations of the modern world is discussed to aid campaigners and social theorists. This work is thus also of interest to policy makers and analysts and other parts of the academic community. The easy stance to take, and the default position in this book, is that of the outraged liberal. This is just a rhetorical device to help drive the discussion and to provoke response.

  • 5 - Censorship, freedom of speech and freedom of expression

  • from Part 2 - Information policy sectors
  • Ian Cornelius
  • Book:
    Information Policies and Strategies
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    23 March 2010, pp 87-102

  • Summary

    FIRST, WE NEED to explore the relationship between these terms, which are slightly different but intricately related. The topic that most excites comment and draws criticism is censorship, which overwhelmingly people instinctively think of as wrong. Yet, when asked about what we should allow children to view or read, at the least we think we should provide guidance for them and if that is not possible we quickly arrive at a point where, we think for the best, some things are concealed from children. Typically, we conceal harmful or illegal content, and the European Union (EU) has a directive for member states to protect minors against such material by restricting it as they think best. Censorship is a cry that is raised in other circumstances, too. We are reluctant to broadcast material on bomb-making, particularly nuclear weapons, biological agents that might incapacitate, injure or kill, or material that might be mentally disturbing for some categories of patients in secure hospitals. The list is easily extended; the question is, where does it stop?

    It is clear that we want to limit the range of material that can automatically be banned, and also limit the classes of people who can be denied access to any material they want to see. If we don't agree to such a limitation we are handing over to those with power and coercive authority – usually but not exclusively governments – the freedom to deny access at will as suits them, and without any certainty that the ban will be removed when any temporary need is over. This is just a matter of experience, and that fact brings us closer to the real world where we must consider what actually happens as well as what we intend. If you ban a child from going to the cinema to see certain types of film you may find that you have, apparently, got a compliant child, but it may later turn out that when the child visits friends they watch even worse material downloaded or on videos: policy decisions and the strategies used to implement them do not always lead to the intended results.

  • 6 - Arguments for protecting speech

  • from Part 2 - Information policy sectors
  • Ian Cornelius
  • Book:
    Information Policies and Strategies
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    23 March 2010, pp 103-124

  • Summary

    IN OUR CONSTRUCTION of information policy we need to have an understanding of how broad explanations of social movements are to be accounted for – whether we want to believe them, accommodate the possibility of them, or ignore them – and we also need to understand how the policies will work in day to day life at ‘street level’. In between these two are the instruments and mechanisms that are meant to give effect to the intentions we have. These mechanisms need a rationale, a set of arguments that form the basis for the formation of policy. These arguments seem to stand on their own, so when we have discussions about censorship, intellectual property or whatever, we tend to see the issue in terms of the arguments that can be brought to bear about that particular issue. The strength of these arguments will have an impact on the effectiveness of the policy or law that is put in place, and they must be seen in the broader context of information policy overall. Whatever social analysis we might have we should also recall that often information policy issues tend to be secondary issues – so the protest in London in early 2009 is seen as an issue about world economic government, capitalism or policing policy, but rarely as an information issue, even though the intention of the protesters was to convey a message.

    In constructing the argument there are three elements to consider. As an aside, let us just explain what we mean by the term ‘an argument’.

    We will often say that someone is arguing for a particular point, and that is the sense in which we are using the term, not in the sense of a strongly expressed disagreement. An argument is a claim supported by a series of testable propositions, where evidence of some sort is connected by some framework of justification to the main claim. Complex arguments may have many stages in each of which the claim and subordinate claims must be tested. First, the argument must offer a convincing or acceptable explanation of the real world situation. Second, the analysis of process and the desired outcomes must also be convincing.

Page 247 of 302