Roberts, Margaret E. "A Theory of Censorship." In Censored: Distraction and Diversion Inside China's Great Firewall, 21-92. PRINCETON; OXFORD: Princeton University Press, 2018. Accessed May 20, 2020. doi:10.2307/j.ctvc77b21.5.
Robert’s ‘Theory of Censorship’ defines censorship as the restriction of public expression and public access to certain information - implemented by authority -that is thought to have the ability to undermine those in power. The process of censorship is not straight forward either, and those in power open up the possibility of undermining themselves in the process therefore, in order to avoid this, government systems evaluate and balance their desire to restrict certain information from public consumption with the significant cost of doing so.
How can information undermine a government?
Government systems are seen by individuals as trustworthy and are relied on by them to do whatever may be in their best interest therefore, information saying otherwise can have extremely detrimental effects on this as not only is 1) the information out there, ready for consumption, in the first place but 2) in order for this information to circulate, it means that there are individuals that already believe it. This can then result in fewer votes/political participation within a Democracy or unsupportive citizens/protesting in Autocracies and thus, the role of censorship is important for these political entities as it allows for the consumption of this information to be slowed down and for disruptive events, such as protesting, to be prevented.
Ideally, political entities would rather that no individuals were aware of such potentially jeopardising political information - of course- and thankfully for them, they have two main tools in place to assist them with this.
- These entities are able to select which information they share or hide as they often are well aware of their own performance in comparison to the general public.
- The entities also have a great influence and power over the infrastructures that distribute this kind of information, i.e telecommunications networks, news publications, therefore allowing them to control how this information is shared.
The cost of Censorship
However, as previously mentioned, censorship has costs associated with it that must be acknowledged as well and as highlighted in lecture 12, the problem is finding a way to collect accurate information about citizens without encouraging opposition from them, also known as ‘The Dictator’s Dilemma’.
One example of ‘The Dictator’s Dilemma’ is when government systems implement speech restraint on citizens. In doing so, the government may then be seen by citizens as wanting to hide something or may no longer be seen as an agent for the people thus causing the public to have a desire to seek out information that the government is attempting to hide and out of fear of punishment of finding such information, causes the public to be scared into silence, creating long-term issues in regards to collecting information from them.
A solution
Therefore, it is important for government systems to have other forms of censorship. Ones that are not necessarily so obvious to the average citizen; friction and Flooding.
Friction is a tax, or acts like a tax, on information by increasing the cost of access to information. By adding a small cost to information, or putting a charge in place if one wants to distribute the information, government systems essentially add another ‘hoop’ for individuals to jump through and in most cases, this preventative measure results in individuals being deterred from finding/gathering the information.
Flooding, on the other hand, influences the media by presenting them with cheaper and easier alternatives to stories that they would have published otherwise. In doing so, governments can control what information is reported on whilst making it seem as if they are being completely open to the media.
Although it seems as if the process of censorship is likely to cause uproar from citizens, by using the two aforementioned strategies of Friction and Flooding, government systems and political entities are able to create distractions and diversions within the public. In doing so, they are able to make it seem as if it is truly in the hands of the individual as to whether or not they access this information and therefore, individuals feel as if they are able to voice their opinions and share their dissatisfaction openly with authority and thus officials are able to achieve their goals of collecting information on the public, whilst minimizing opposition.
Thanks for this summary, 300416655. Do you have any examples of friction or flooding being used around the world?
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ReplyDeleteAs noted by Xavier in the lecturer censorship is a tool in shaping people beliefs and is about politics and the shaping the cost of information. I would like to explore further the idea in the lectures that non democratic and even in democratic countries would argue that censorship is a tool to protect its people from information that may be harmful.
As noted in this paper there is a cost of censorship as its people may think that the government may have something to hide and cause problems down the track. As noted it is the Dictators Dilemma .The paper suggests that the solution is to have other forms of censorship -flooding(cheaper & easier information) and fiction (tax or increase the cost of the information) to manage this flow of information. It is interesting to see counties like China that use these techniques to help them censor information. China has their own google which helps them manage the flow of information. In China's case they have built walls to stop this information getting through to its population. It should be noted what the drivers are, countries censor information for various reasons , but undemocratic regimes use it to control its population ,but have different tools to get there , as noted above. Censorship is one of the oldest forms of repression and is a useful tool to control the masses.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/09/10/dictators-internet-love-story/
https://globalnews.ca/news/4987866/internet-censorship-china-india-russia/?