Governance of Information

Information is the lifeblood of the knowledge economy. As it has shifted from a conduit of commercial transactions (signaling among other things quality and price) to the central good exchanged on information markets, its value has risen - and so has the need to govern the flow of information.

Much of this governance takes place among private actors - individuals keep and relay information to each other, and so do commercial enterprises. Rules - in the form of laws and regulations - aid in this governing of information, from intellectual property to privacy rights, from contractual non-disclosure clauses to mandatory transparency norms, like the ones found in the freedom of information acts. The governance of information is as much about excluding others from information flows, as it is to include - and the societal limits that constrain these decisions.

While the study of information flows has gain traction over the years, especially over the last decade (due to the rise of the Internet and the global information economy), the discourse over normative frameworks of information governance - going beyond particularistic views of IP or privacy or transparency - is still in its infancy.

This research initiative at the I+I Centre aims at contributing to the academic dialogue twofold:
(1) by offering robust empirical research on information flows subjected to various mechanisms of information governance
(2) by offering normative theories and framework to conceptualize the governance of information.