Since the beginning of time, advances in technology have shaped the way human beings live. For a long period of time these technologies helped societies expand and the world seemed to be growing. With advancements made today, just the opposite is true. The expansion of the internet has created a shrinking world where people can easily communicate and work with each other while on opposite sides of the Earth. Marshall McLuhan explained the internet as creating a “global village” in his book Understanding Media. Just like a small village in the past, people can share information instantaneously. This has allowed for great changes, but the creation of different social media’s and the way people can use them has brought new concerns and questions of ethics. A major issue is the idea of transparency.
Transparency, as used in the humanities and in a social context more generally implies openness, communication, and accountability. It is a metaphorical extension of the meaning of a "transparent" object is one that can be seen through. Transparent procedures include open meetings, financial disclosure statements, the freedom of information legislation, budgetary review, audits, etc. This is the definition provided by Wikipedia, which can be viewed right now by countless people throughout the world thanks to the internet. This definition has been created after numerous people have offered their own contributions and they have been reviewed and researched. Wikipedia has now grown into being one of the major references for all sorts of information and is also an excellent example of a Social Media.
Before going into transparency and the issues it brings about in social media, it is important to realize how people have evolved in the way they interact with the media.
Lev Manovich’s “Interacting with an Interface,” he explains how tools such as computers and cellular phones have changed completely in their design and are no longer tools that are simply used. Instead, they now act as devices that people interact with on a daily basis for multiple purposes. Manovich uses the cell phone as his first example, and the changes in phones over the last decade are quite astounding. What was once only used to be able to call someone while on-the-go can now be used for music, surfing the web, as a GPS, and so much more. Computers are not strictly work tools now either. They have become common for people of all ages to use and customize for their own needs and desires. The reason this is now possible for technology users is, as Manovich explains, because the design of the interface has moved away from goal of being “invisible” so that people can interact with it and do whatever they want. The issue with this is what do people really want to do? This is where the idea of transparency in social media becomes extremely important.
In an online world people are able to create an entirely new “self.” While sitting behind a computer people can appear however they would like, but what are the motives behind their actions? Some people use technologies as an extension of themselves and stick to their convictions, while others have ulterior motives that could be completely hidden. Brian Carter discusses this issue in detail in his online post, “The Illusion of Transparency in Social Media.”
While talking with a person face to face, it is much easier to determine certain things about them based on style of speech, clothing, ideals, etc. Online is much more difficult because the viewer is only reading words and taking them as a person’s true opinion. With the explosion of blogs and consumer feedback, testimonials and claims of experts have lost their power and influence. Following this trend, advertisers have also evolved and now there are people paid to go around blogging and providing positive feedback on certain companies and products. This is concerning because it feels as though there is no one to truly trust, unless people are transparent about their motives. Within that extreme, it seems logical and beneficial if everyone was transparent online, but Carter argues this idea and brings up intriguing and valid arguments against it.
It is good to be aware of people who are being paid to post only positive things about a company because it may not be genuine in any form because they receive money for their actions. The problem is larger than that concept alone though because there are several other types of capital aside from financial (money). Carter points out those other forms of capital: human capital (workers and their productions), culture capital (knowledge), social capital (relationships), and political capital (popularity and support). The idea is that other forms of payment exist outside of money. One example he gives is about “Tweeting” about a charity event. This event may be very important and you may truly care about the goals, but part of why you tweet about it could be to appear to others as though you really care about a cause. By doing this people could think more highly of you, and that counts as social capital. His key argument here is not whether it is good or bad to tweet about events and activities like this, but if you stand to gain any type of capital from it, does that mean you need to disclose that to everyone? If you do not than you are not being transparent, but if you do it seems selfish.
While transparency is important, in some aspects it raises debatable questions. As Carter asks, where is the line? At what point does not being transparent about motives become unethical? If you post something on social media site that you truly believe in, but it provides you some form of capital, does it carry less meaning? In the skeptical society we live in now, it is hard to be given credibility when there is compensation for what you are saying. But at the same time, “experts” claim certain products are best meanwhile they may be getting paid for each sale of said product. It is very hard to distinguish what is right and wrong at what level, but the issue is much more prevalent in an online world because users do not know who exactly they are talking too. In a face to face conversation, there is already a relationship formed before ideas are being shared. In this physical relationship though, how transparent and honest is each party really being?
McLuhan says that the medium is the message, and that technologies are the extension of man. Does that mean that transparency is a bigger issue in the real world than people realize and that the online world is just the manifestation of the same issues on a greater scale because of the anonymity available? Opinions may vary greatly on this issue, but it cannot be denied that it has been brought into the spotlight much more because of online interactions.
