Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Articles 1 - 18 of 18

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Being Curious With Secrecy, Clare Stevens, Elspeth Van Veeren, Brian Rappert, Owen D. Thomas Aug 2023

Being Curious With Secrecy, Clare Stevens, Elspeth Van Veeren, Brian Rappert, Owen D. Thomas

Secrecy and Society

This article contributes to ongoing attempts to broaden out theorizations of secrecy from an intentional and willful act of concealment to a cultural and structural process. We do so by fostering a conversation between secrecy and curiosity. This conversation is enabled through a review of central themes in secrecy studies and curiosity studies, but also through an examination of a collaboration between the science center “We the Curious” and a network of academic researchers. In doing so, this article makes a case for the benefits of paying more attention to curiosity as a means of facilitating a multifaceted understanding of …


(Not) Accessing The Castle: Grappling With Secrecy In Research On Security Practices, Lilly P. Muller, Natalie Welfens Aug 2023

(Not) Accessing The Castle: Grappling With Secrecy In Research On Security Practices, Lilly P. Muller, Natalie Welfens

Secrecy and Society

This article discusses how to deal with secrecy and limited access in ethnographically inspired research of security fields. Drawing inspiration from recent debates about secrecy in Critical Security Research and from Franz Kafka’s The Castle, we propose to treat access limitations and the secrecy we encounter as methodological tools that provide insights into social relations and power structures of security fields. We develop the argument in two steps. First, we argue for a more fine-grained taxonomy of secrecy, that allows to distinguish between mystery, concealment and the relational dimension of secrecy. Second, we apply the taxonomy to our respective …


Matthew Potolsky’S The National Security Sublime: On The Aesthetics Of Government Secrecy, Nolan Higdon Jan 2021

Matthew Potolsky’S The National Security Sublime: On The Aesthetics Of Government Secrecy, Nolan Higdon

Secrecy and Society

Matthew Potolsky’s brilliantly woven The National Security Sublime: On the Aesthetics of Government Secrecy offers a powerful and engaging discussion of national security and government secrecy. His findings concerning the influence artists have on citizens’ perception of national security is a major contribution to the field. It highlights Americans false sense of awareness regarding government secrecy, that in itself enables government secrecy. Potolsky has made a massive contribution to the study of government secrecy that is sure to spark future research concerning the intersection of national security and aesthetics.


Today’S Fake News Is Tomorrow’S Fake History: How Us History Textbooks Mirror Corporate News Media Narratives, Nolan Higdon, Mickey Huff, Jen Lyons Jan 2021

Today’S Fake News Is Tomorrow’S Fake History: How Us History Textbooks Mirror Corporate News Media Narratives, Nolan Higdon, Mickey Huff, Jen Lyons

Secrecy and Society

The main thrust of this study is to assess how the systematic biases found in mass media journalism affect the writing of history textbooks. There has been little attention paid to how the dissemination of select news information regarding the recent past, particularly from the 1990s through the War on Terror, influences the ways in which US history is taught in schools. This study employs a critical-historical lens with a media ecology framework to compare Project Censored’s annual list of censored and under-reported stories to the leading and most adopted high school and college US history textbooks. The findings reveal …


Concealing In The Public Interest, Or Why We Must Teach Secrecy, Susan Maret Jan 2021

Concealing In The Public Interest, Or Why We Must Teach Secrecy, Susan Maret

Secrecy and Society

Secrecy as the intentional or unintentional concealment of information is the subject of investigation within the humanities, social sciences, journalism, law and legal studies. However, the subject it is not widely taught as a distinct social problem within higher education. In this article, I report personal experience with developing and teaching a graduate level course on a particular type of secrecy, government secrecy, at the School of Information, San Jose State University. This article includes discussion on selecting course materials, creating assignments, and navigating controversial histories. This article also sets the stage to this special issue of Secrecy and Society …


Writing The Official History Of The Joint Intelligence Committee, Michael Goodman Sep 2018

Writing The Official History Of The Joint Intelligence Committee, Michael Goodman

Secrecy and Society

This article recounts the experience of a professional historian in being given the keys to the kingdom: access to the classified vaults of Britain’s Joint Intelligence Committee. This article includes some of the problems in having access, but complying with the sensitivities around official accounts, difficulties in writing a global history, or trying to make the work of a committee interesting and accessible, and of trying to determine the impact of intelligence on policy.



Historical Amnesia: British And U.S. Intelligence, Past And Present, Calder Walton Sep 2018

Historical Amnesia: British And U.S. Intelligence, Past And Present, Calder Walton

Secrecy and Society

Many intelligence scandals in the news today seem unprecedented - from Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. Presidential election, to British and U.S. intelligence agencies monitoring activities of their citizens. They seem new largely because, traditionally, intelligence agencies on both sides of the Atlantic were excessively secretive about their past activities: even the names “GCHQ” and “NSA” were airbrushed from declassified records, and thus missing from major historical works and scholarship on on post-war international relations. The resulting secrecy about British and U.S. intelligence has led to misunderstandings and conspiracy theories in societies about them. Newly opened secret records now …


Troping The Enemy: Metaphor, Culture, And The Big Data Black Boxes Of National Security, Robert Albro Sep 2018

Troping The Enemy: Metaphor, Culture, And The Big Data Black Boxes Of National Security, Robert Albro

Secrecy and Society

This article considers how cultural understanding is being brought into the work of the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA), through an analysis of its Metaphor program. It examines the type of social science underwriting this program, unpacks implications of the agency’s conception of metaphor for understanding so-called cultures of interest, and compares IARPA’s to competing accounts of how metaphor works to create cultural meaning. The article highlights some risks posed by key deficits in the Intelligence Community's (IC) approach to culture, which relies on the cognitive linguistic theories of George Lakoff and colleagues. It also explores the problem of …


Secrecy And Intelligence: Introduction, Kathleen Vogel, Brian Balmer Sep 2018

Secrecy And Intelligence: Introduction, Kathleen Vogel, Brian Balmer

Secrecy and Society

The catalyst for this special issue of Secrecy and Society stems from a workshop titled “Secrecy and Intelligence: Opening the Black Box” at North Carolina State University, April, 2016. This workshop brought together interested scholars, intelligence practitioners, and civil society members from the United States and Europe to discuss how different facets of secrecy and other practices shape the production of knowledge in intelligence work. This dialogue aimed to be reflective on how the closed social worlds of intelligence shape what intelligence actors and intelligence analysts, who include those within the intelligence establishment and those on the outside, know about …


Secrecy, Democracy And War: A Review, Brian Martin Nov 2016

Secrecy, Democracy And War: A Review, Brian Martin

Secrecy and Society

No abstract provided.


The Tension Between Privacy And Security, Susan Maret, Antoon De Baets Nov 2016

The Tension Between Privacy And Security, Susan Maret, Antoon De Baets

Secrecy and Society

No abstract provided.


A Historian's View Of The International Freedom Of Expression Framework, Antoon De Baets Nov 2016

A Historian's View Of The International Freedom Of Expression Framework, Antoon De Baets

Secrecy and Society

No abstract provided.


Whither Megaleaking? Questions In The Wake Of The Panama Papers, Lisa Lynch, David S. Levine Nov 2016

Whither Megaleaking? Questions In The Wake Of The Panama Papers, Lisa Lynch, David S. Levine

Secrecy and Society

No abstract provided.


Could Technology End Secrecy?, Chris Hables Gray Nov 2016

Could Technology End Secrecy?, Chris Hables Gray

Secrecy and Society

No abstract provided.


Secrecy, Confidentiality And "Dirty Work": The Case Of Public Relations, Sue Curry Jansen Nov 2016

Secrecy, Confidentiality And "Dirty Work": The Case Of Public Relations, Sue Curry Jansen

Secrecy and Society

No abstract provided.


Humpty Dumpty Was Wrong - Consistency In Meaning Matters: Some Definitions Of Privacy, Publicity, Secrecy, And Other Family Members, Gary T. Marx Nov 2016

Humpty Dumpty Was Wrong - Consistency In Meaning Matters: Some Definitions Of Privacy, Publicity, Secrecy, And Other Family Members, Gary T. Marx

Secrecy and Society

No abstract provided.


Six Answers To The Question “What Is Secrecy Studies?”, Clare Birchall Nov 2016

Six Answers To The Question “What Is Secrecy Studies?”, Clare Birchall

Secrecy and Society

No abstract provided.


The Charm Of Secrecy: Secrecy And Society As Secrecy Studies, Susan Maret Nov 2016

The Charm Of Secrecy: Secrecy And Society As Secrecy Studies, Susan Maret

Secrecy and Society

No abstract provided.