Joho the Blog » Transparency is the new objectivity - The Diigo Meta page

• 16 Dec 09
  

  Jon Kruithof

  Search Engines

• 10 Oct 09
  

  José Mota

  david.weinberger transparency objectivity are

• 30 Sep 09
  

  Michael Becker

  David Weinberger tells us that transparency now carries a lot of the importance that used to be laid on objectivity.

  objectivity transparency journalism David Weinberger

  • Outside of the realm of science, objectivity is discredited these days as anything but an aspiration, and even that aspiration is looking pretty sketchy. The problem with objectivity is that it tries to show what the world looks like from no particular point of view, which is like wondering what something looks like in the dark.
  • What we used to believe because we thought the author was objective we now believe because we can see through the author’s writings to the sources and values that brought her to that position. Transparency gives the reader information by which she can undo some of the unintended effects of the ever-present biases. Transparency brings us to reliability the way objectivity used to.
  • 2 more annotations...

  • • At the edges of knowledge — in the analysis and contextualization that journalists nowadays tell us is their real value — we want, need, can have, and expect transparency. Transparency puts within the report itself a way for us to see what assumptions and values may have shaped it, and lets us see the arguments that the report resolved one way and not another. Transparency — the embedded ability to see through the published draft — often gives us more reason to believe a report than the claim of objectivity did.

      
      

    • Objectivity without transparency increasingly will look like arrogance. And then foolishness. Why should we trust what one person — with the best of intentions — insists is true when we instead could have a web of evidence, ideas, and argument?
• 17 Sep 09
  

  Steve Ransom

  transparency publish information objectivity informationliteracy

• 19 Aug 09
  

  Alain Antone

  transparency objectivity journalism joho newspapers transnets

  • A friend asked me to post an explanation of what I meant when I said at PDF09 that “transparency is the new objectivity.” First, I apologize for the cliché of “x is the new y.” Second, what I meant is that transparency is now fulfilling some of objectivity’s old role in the ecology of knowledge.
• 10 Aug 09
  

  Heinz Wittenbrink

  Wenn Linkjournalismus möglich ist, brauchen wir den Anspruch auf Objektivität nicht mehr als "trust mechanism". An seine Stelle tritt Transparenz: Wir wollen wissen, wie eine Aussage zustande kommte - die Quellen müssen zugänglich sein. Dave Winer fordert

  Media&Journalism by:DavidWeinberger link journalism medienethik

• 27 Jul 09
  

  Clive McGoun

  Nice post which will get a whole load of people talking! Of course it's too short and misses a whole lot of stuff out about the epistemology of hypertext, the nature of reading and plausibility, the idea of social science as story etc., but the point here was to start a conversation - and that is most definitely achieved.

  transparency journalism objectivity

  • transparency is now fulfilling some of objectivity’s old role in the ecology of knowledge.

    
    

  • The problem with objectivity is that it tries to show what the world looks like from no particular point of view, which is like wondering what something looks like in the dark. Nevertheless, objectivity — even as an unattainable goal — served an important role in how we came to trust information, and in the economics of newspapers in the modern age
  • 2 more annotations...
  • • What we used to believe because we thought the author was objective we now believe because we can see through the author’s writings to the sources and values that brought her to that position. Transparency gives the reader information by which she can undo some of the unintended effects of the ever-present biases. Transparency brings us to reliability the way objectivity used to.
    • We thought that that was how knowledge works, but it turns out that it’s really just how paper works. Transparency prospers in a linked medium, for you can literally see the connections between the final draft’s claims and the ideas that informed it. Paper, on the other hand, sucks at links. You can look up the footnote, but that’s an expensive, time-consuming activity more likely to result in failure than success. So, during the Age of Paper, we got used to the idea that authority comes in the form of a stop sign: You’ve reached a source whose reliability requires no further inquiry.
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  aurelien v76

  objectivite blog journalisme lien transparence delicious

• 26 Jul 09
  

  Todd Suomela

  In fact, transparency subsumes objectivity. Anyone who claims objectivity should be willing to back that assertion up by letting us look at sources, disagreements, and the personal assumptions and values supposedly bracketed out of the report.

  objectivity transparency media philosophy internet culture

  • Transparency prospers in a linked medium, for you can literally see the connections between the final draft’s claims and the ideas that informed it. Paper, on the other hand, sucks at links. You can look up the footnote, but that’s an expensive, time-consuming activity more likely to result in failure than success.
  • In the Age of Links, we still use credentials and rely on authorities. Those are indispensible ways of scaling knowledge, that is, letting us know more than any one of us could authenticate on our own. But, increasingly, credentials and authority work best for vouchsafing commoditized knowledge, the stuff that’s settled and not worth arguing about. At the edges of knowledge — in the analysis and contextualization that journalists nowadays tell us is their real value — we want, need, can have, and expect transparency. Transparency puts within the report itself a way for us to see what assumptions and values may have shaped it, and lets us see the arguments that the report resolved one way and not another. Transparency — the embedded ability to see through the published draft — often gives us more reason to believe a report than the claim of objectivity did.
• 24 Jul 09
  

  Lisa Spiro

  transparency openness

• 21 Jul 09
  

  Howard Dunlavy
• 20 Jul 09
  

  Julie Espinosa

  journalism

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  julius beezer

  journalism transparency objectivity

• 

  Nate Otto

  Required reading on media reconfiguration and values:
  "Objectivity used be presented as a stopping point for belief: If the source is objective and well-informed, you have sufficient reason to believe. The objectivity of the reporter is a stopping point for reader’s inquiry. That was part of high-end newspapers’ claimed value: You can’t believe what you read in a slanted tabloid, but our news is objective, so your inquiry can come to rest here. Credentialing systems had the same basic rhythm: You can stop your quest once you come to a credentialed authority who says, “I got this. You can believe it.” End of story.
  
  "We thought that that was how knowledge works, but it turns out that it’s really just how paper works. Transparency prospers in a linked medium, for you can literally see the connections between the final draft’s claims and the ideas that informed it. "

  newspapers journalism new_media transparency objectivity

• 

  Terry Elliott
• 

  John Z
  • objectivity is discredited these days as anything but an aspiration
  • The problem with objectivity is that it tries to show what the world looks like from no particular point of view
  • 5 more annotations...
  • • “If I tell you, how can you trust what I write?,” to which I replied that if he doesn’t tell us, how can we trust what he blogs?
    • Transparency brings us to reliability the way objectivity used to
    • In fact, transparency subsumes objectivity.
    • Objectivity without transparency increasingly will look like arrogance.
    • In short: Objectivity is a trust mechanism you rely on when your medium can’t do links. Now our medium can.
• 

  Andrew Murphie

  transparency web2.0 semanticweb expertise tecintense

• 

  Arne van Elk

  David Weinberger (Auteur van "Everything is Miscalleneous") stelt dat op internet transparantie veel belangrijker is dan 'objectiveit'. Echte objectiviteit bestaat eigenlijk niet, daarom is het beter om precies te laten zien waar je je informatie vandaan hebt. Op internet kan dat gemakkelijk door te linken. Zo is helder (transparant) gemaakt waar je je ideeën vandaan hebt.

  internet betrouwbaarheid informatie information transparancy

  • Outside of the realm of science, objectivity is discredited these days as anything but an aspiration, and even that aspiration is looking pretty sketchy. The problem with objectivity is that it tries to show what the world looks like from no particular point of view, which is like wondering what something looks like in the dark. Nevertheless, objectivity — even as an unattainable goal — served an important role in how we came to trust information, and in the economics of newspapers in the modern age.
  • So, that’s one sense in which transparency is the new objectivity. What we used to believe because we thought the author was objective we now believe because we can see through the author’s writings to the sources and values that brought her to that position. Transparency gives the reader information by which she can undo some of the unintended effects of the ever-present biases. Transparency brings us to reliability the way objectivity used to.
• 

  Martin Lindner

  epochal change: ... Transparency — the embedded ability to see through the published draft ...

  reboot_d digital_left transparency quote deli

• 

  Howard Rheingold

  Outside of the realm of science, objectivity is discredited these days as anything but an aspiration, and even that aspiration is looking pretty sketchy. The problem with objectivity is that it tries to show what the world looks like from no particular point of view, which is like wondering what something looks like in the dark. Nevertheless, objectivity — even as an unattainable goal — served an important role in how we came to trust information, and in the economics of newspapers in the modern age.

  knowledge credibility reputation

• 

  Ashley Middleton

  transparency

• 

  Karl Fisch

  So, that’s one sense in which transparency is the new objectivity. What we used to believe because we thought the author was objective we now believe because we can see through the author’s writings to the sources and values that brought her to that position. Transparency gives the reader information by which she can undo some of the unintended effects of the ever-present biases. Transparency brings us to reliability the way objectivity used to.
  
  This change is, well, epochal.

  transparency newspapers

Page Comments

• 
  M McBride on 2009-07-20
  My only issue with transparency these days is how it applies to individual citizens versus power holders. while I agree in principle with this argument I still feel that we need to tease out the implications according to privilege and power - two issues that are frequently concealed in many of the recent pronouncements about what the current standard is or should be. I want to see these discussions mediated with far more of an emphasis on the politics. in essence: how does this idea reinforce or challenge the dominant ideology?
• 
  Alain Antone on 2009-08-19
  La transparence est la nouvelle objectivité
  
  La phrase est de David Weinberger . Il l’avait prononcée à la conférence de Personal Democracy Forum (voir ce billet et celui-ci ) fin juin et vient de la reprendre sous forme de billet qu’on peut lire sur son blog et sur celui de Supernova . Ça nous permet de la décortiquer. Elle en vaut la peine.
  
  Exemple: un journaliste connu à qui il demandait pour quel candidat à la présidence il votait lui ayant répondu “Si je te dis pour qui je vote comment pourras-tu croire ce que j’écris,” Weinberger a rétorqué qu’il lui paraissait difficile de croire ce qu’il bloguait s’il ne disait pas pour qui il votait.
  
  La transparence est la nouvelle objectivité d’abord parce qu’elle permet de voir les sources de l’auteur et les valeurs qui l’ont amené à prendre la position qui est la sienne. C’est de là que vient la confiance aujourd’hui. Hier, l’objectivité du reporter nous donnait des raisons de croire. Elle avait pour inconvénient de nous encourager à cesser de douter, de renoncer à enquêter par nous même.
  
  Nous croyions donc que “c’est ainsi que la connaissance fonctionne,” écrit Weinberger alors que c’est seulement “comme ça que le papier fonctionne”.
  
  C’est le lien qui change tout. “La transparence – la capacité intégrée de voir par delà le brouillon tel qu’il est publié – nous donne souvent plus de raison de croire un article que ne le faisait l’affirmation d’objectivité.”
  
  Mais à l’heure du web, “L’objectivité sans transparence ressemblera de plus en plus souvent à de l’arrogance”. Pourquoi faire confiance quand on peut avoir accès aux faits, à la source des idées, aux arguments?
  
  “En bref,” conclue Weinberger, “l’objectivité est un mécanisme de confiance pour support sans liens. Maintenant, notre support en a.”
  
  J’ajouterai que l’objectivité est généralement décrétée ou prétendue par les journaux et que c’est aux autres qu’incombe la charge de la preuve, la démonstration qu’il y a mensonge ou parti pris. Pas toujours facile comme on sait.
  
  J’aime cet univers dans lequel on n’est plus cru sur parole pur la même raison que j’aime le fait qu’il nous est plus facile de douter du web que de ce qui est imprimé: parce que ça encourage l’esprit critique et la curiosité.
  
  Comment pousseriez-vous l’argument un peu plus avant?

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