Research Handbook on Information Policy

Abstract

In the very first published article in the very first issue of the Journal of Information Policy back in 2011, Sandra Braman defined information policy as “laws, regulations, and doctrinal positions—and other decision making and practices with society-wide constitutive effects—involving information creation, processing, flows, access, and use.” That seminal conception of the field is cited by several authors in the 2021 book Research Handbook on Information Policy—an expansive collection of chapters by authors in a variety of fields, who were invited to contribute either research into current information policy issues or research on the meaning of the field itself.With its 400+ pages, small font, wide page layout, and twenty-eight contributed chapters, this book offers a War and Peace-like reading experience for anyone interested in the state of the information policy field. The contributors are from a variety of countries (largely in North America and Europe), and a variety of academic pursuits, including mass communications, law, library studies, information studies, and political science. Some of the contributors propose extending the field into matters like literacy and equality as well. This wide variety of contributions illustrates the reach and flexibility of the information policy field, but inadvertently exposes some difficulties in positioning the field in academia and in the research canon.In his introductory chapter, editor Alistair S. Duff explains that information policy may seem like a new field, but it is the culmination of a long research tradition starting with postindustrial economics, then computers, then telecommunications networks as defined by Ithiel de Sola Pool in the 1980s, and finally the information society conceived by Jorge Schement and Terry Curtis in the 1990s. Building upon this intellectual progression, with the addition of the aforementioned modern definition by Braman, Duff proposes that information policy has developed as a research field but is not yet a “discipline” of its own, given its clear interdisciplinary characteristics. However, Duff explains that the book intends to help information policy progress from an expansive field to a distinct discipline.In the book’s early chapters, authors assess the current state of information policy as a research field, and these chapters are essential for anyone interested in expanding the field’s theories and methods. We are treated to a new contribution from Braman in Chapter 3, in which she theorizes that the field has graduated from a state of “ecstasy” (in which people gorged on information) to “entropy” (information now tells us less and less). According to Braman, this requires a new outlook on information policies from lawmakers. In Chapter 4, Steve Fuller offers a similar interpretation of the modern state of the field, as information policy has advanced from “prophetic” (a few eccentric experts) to “priestly” (overseen by organized institutions).The book then proceeds into chapters on the development of information policy theory, with an exemplary contribution from Richard D. Taylor in Chapter 8, calling for “transformational change” as lawmakers try to keep up with an information sphere that keeps racing ahead at top speed. I especially enjoyed the similarly conceived Chapter 10, in which Paul T. Jaeger and Natalie Greene Taylor call for up-to-date information literacy among politicians.The remainder of the book offers research on a variety of subtopics, with many successes but some questionable entries as well. This illustrates the difficulty in nailing down the information policy field—a problem that Duff vowed to straighten out in the introduction but with mixed results. To start, two consecutive chapters adapt the theories of John Rawls to modern data surveillance with nearly identical results, and a later chapter makes no mention of information policy while ruminating on what Walter Lippman and Jurgen Habermas would make of modern political journalism. The inclusion of these chapters seems like a decision based less on the reader’s understanding of the field and more on including the broadest coverage possible.There are three chapters dedicated to access to information (ATI), as in government-held documents, but that field has a long and robust history within journalism law. Those chapters, while informative in their own right, sit oddly in this book with little explanation of how ATI could be made a part of the information policy field or if the two could work in tandem. There is a similar concern with three chapters on intellectual property, with a particularly curious contribution from John Feather in Chapter 20, offering little more than a condensed history of copyright with little to no mention of information policy (though Feather is a respected authority on copyright law).Fortunately, some of the other contributions in the second half of the book raise fascinating ideas for future research in the field. For instance, in Chapter 17, Arne Hintz calls for information policies that address how pervasive data surveillance affects personal expression, while in Chapter 18, Emily J. M. Knox calls for similar policies that address rampant misinformation and disinformation. Another particularly insightful contribution comes from Amit M. Schejter in Chapter 23, calling for new research on information inequality, as there are haves and have-nots in this sphere just like everywhere else.Overall, the Research Handbook on Information Policy is an occasionally odd mix of theory development, summaries of subfields, calls for future research, and a few very specific case studies of questionable applicability (such as Catherine Heeney’s analysis of the operations of the UK Office of National Statistics in Chapter 27). That makes the book a rather difficult reading experience, and its goals of achieving a succinct and modern definition of “information policy” are only partially realized. Regardless, the book serves as a robust tome of ideas, theories, and methods that will be useful for any forward-looking researcher in the field.