Secrecy and censorship involve norms about the control of information. Censorship of communicatio... more Secrecy and censorship involve norms about the control of information. Censorship of communication in the modern sense is associated with large, complex urban societies with a degree of centralized control and technical means of effectively reaching a mass audience. It involves a determination of what can, and can not, (or in the case of nongovernmental efforts should and should not) be expressed in light of given political, religious, cultural, and artistic standards. The appearance of new communications (e.g., the printing press or the Internet) technologies invariably create demands from conflicting groups for greater openness and freedom of communication and demands for greater control. Authorities try (often in vain) to control new techniques of mass communication. Three major means of direct censorship (prepublication review, licensing and registration, and government monopolization) are preventive in nature. Among democracies there is considerable variation in censorship by content, media of communication, place, time period and across societies. There are degrees of censorship and individual interests are balanced against those of the community, however hard the latter is to define. More common than outright prohibition, is the segmentation of material involving time, place and person restrictions. Direct government means of censorship must be considered separately from the availability of resources to create and distribute information, the activities of private groups and from informal censorship, including exclusion from sources of information and self-censorship. In a democratic society secrecy and openness exist in a continual dynamic tension.
Secrecy and censorship involve norms about the control of information. Censorship of communicatio... more Secrecy and censorship involve norms about the control of information. Censorship of communication in the modern sense is associated with large, complex urban societies with a degree of centralized control and technical means of effectively reaching a mass audience. It involves a determination of what can, and can not, (or in the case of nongovernmental efforts should and should not) be expressed in light of given political, religious, cultural, and artistic standards. The appearance of new communications (e.g., the printing press or the Internet) technologies invariably create demands from conflicting groups for greater openness and freedom of communication and demands for greater control. Authorities try (often in vain) to control new techniques of mass communication. Three major means of direct censorship (prepublication review, licensing and registration, and government monopolization) are preventive in nature. Among democracies there is considerable variation in censorship by content, media of communication, place, time period and across societies. There are degrees of censorship and individual interests are balanced against those of the community, however hard the latter is to define. More common than outright prohibition, is the segmentation of material involving time, place and person restrictions. Direct government means of censorship must be considered separately from the availability of resources to create and distribute information, the activities of private groups and from informal censorship, including exclusion from sources of information and self-censorship. In a democratic society secrecy and openness exist in a continual dynamic tension.
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