Abstract
The history of information policies - encompassing the state’s collection, storage, organization, analysis, generation, dissemination and distortion of information - can be traced back centuries before the formal recognition of the digitally-loaded term ‘information policy’. It is possible to conceptualize a pre-history of information policy, formed by the histories of a wide variety of discrete information policies fashioned by the state before the digital age. The contexts selected to discuss these policies are: the government and Parliamentary machines; economic life; population, public health and statistics; military intelligence; mass media, communications and information control; and administrative surveillance of the individual. Although evidence presented is confined to Britain and its antecedents, a main aim of the chapter is to offer a template for investigating the history of information policies elsewhere. Recognition of a pre-history of information policy supports the argument that the ‘information state’ has a lineage stretching back to the Middle Ages.
Original language | English (US) |
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Title of host publication | Research Handbook on Information Policy |
Editors | Alistair S Duff |
Publisher | Edward Elgar Publishing |
Pages | 80-95 |
Number of pages | 16 |
ISBN (Electronic) | 9781789903584 |
ISBN (Print) | 9781789903577 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Oct 24 2021 |