Archive for February 2014

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[ecrea] Call for Papers from Ethical Space: Sleepwalking towards Big Brother? The Ethics of Communication in an Era of Mass Surveillance

Mon Feb 17 15:42:31 GMT 2014





Call for Papers: Ethical Space: The International Journal of Communication Ethics

Sleepwalking towards Big Brother?: The Ethics of Communication in an Era of Mass Surveillance

Call for Papers
The unauthorised release of documents from the National Security Agency by dissident contractor Edward Snowden has raised a new set of ethical questions for the media, politicians, the national security state and the public. Snowden has revealed that, as a result of the pervasive nature of modern electronic communications, we have sleepwalked into the mass surveillance state, capable of documenting the citizens’ every electronic communication and much of their telecommunications and internet usage. This surveillance state is far more extensive that anything that could have been conceived by the Stasi. Yet the publication of Snowden’s material by leading news organisations has been challenged not only by the states concerned, but also others parts of the news media, the academy and the public in those countries. Some have found mass surveillance reassuring and others felt able to ignore the Snowden disclosures.

Ethical Space is planning a special double issue in the middle of next year to examine the ethical issues in this contested discourse. This could include ethical issues around mass surveillance, the secret state, privacy and the media publication of the Snowden revelations. Ethical Space’s editors believe the implication of Snowden’s revelations is so profound that it needs multidisciplinary response. In addition to the journal’s existing and established media-based community, the editors solicit papers from other disciplines including intelligence studies, political studies, criminology, psychology, international politics, history, law and computing on a broad range of topics. This could include:

• the ethical issues surrounding new concepts/activities such sousveillance [the surveillance of the state by citizens]; • the impact the collective knowledge of a mass surveillance state could have on citizens’ behaviour;
• the ethics of social engineering;
• the legality or otherwise of the collection of data by the NSA network for each country involved; • the part played by ‘patriotism’ in media coverage of this global story. What are the ethics of patriotism? • the special strategies (perhaps of ‘deep scepticism’) required by journalists dealing with information about the secret state whether from ‘official’ sources or dissident whistleblowers.

Editors Professor Richard Lance Keeble and Donald Matheson have invited Paul Lashmar, of Brunel University, who specialises in the relationship between intelligence agencies and the media, to be guest editor of this issue.

Expressions of interest in contributing to the special ES issue can be registered by submitting a 250-word abstract by the 1 July 2014 to (paul.lashmar /at/ brunel.ac.uk). Publication guidelines can be found at: http://www.communicationethics.net/espace/index.php?nav=guide



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