Censored 2013 by Mickey Huff

Author:Mickey Huff
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Censored 2013, news media, analysis, revolution, politics, media studies, journalism, junk food news, international, truth emergency, democracy, national, louis macabitas, mickey huff, Peter Phillips, Andy Lee Roth
Publisher: Seven Stories Press
Published: 2012-10-29T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 5

Censorship Backfires

A Taxonomy of Concepts Related to Censorship1

by Dr. Antoon De Baets

INTRODUCTION: TRACING CENSORSHIP

The question of how we know when censorship occurred has several sides. Problems of evidence of censorship do not only arise from practical obstacles, but also from its very nature as a knowledge-related phenomenon. Three epistemological paradoxes are worth mentioning.

First, many forms of censorship are invisible and difficult to trace, since censorship normally takes place in an atmosphere of secrecy. Michael Scammell wrote that censorship hides itself: “One of the first words to be censored by the censors is the word ‘censorship.”’2 Clive Ponting made a similar remark: “In a secretive country, the extent of secrecy is itself a well-kept secret.”3 The less visible the censorship, the more effective it is.4

Second, in repressive societies there is less information about more censorship, whereas in a democratic society there is more information about less censorship. Under dictatorial regimes, insiders (or outsiders allowed to visit the country) who are aware of censorship mostly do not report it because they fear research or career troubles or backlash effects on themselves or their wider circle. The result is wide underreporting. Authors who do mention the subject typically do so in passing. Sometimes they treat it more extensively, as they write under the vivid impression of a recent famous case. If they systematically research and report it, and become whistleblowers, they may encounter disbelief. Data from the censors themselves are generally lacking, at least until the moment when a post-conflict transition arrives. Several exceptional but most important moments of repression, and moments of large operations in particular, are ill-suited for recording. Active recording of repression of scholars typically requires stability and routine. In more democratic regimes, censorship is certainly not absent, but it is usually less unobserved and less uncriticized.

These twin paradoxes entail a third one that comes to light when censorship is seen as problematic: studying censorship is the beginning of its suspension. Censorship has a backfire effect and the study of censorship is itself one of the manifestations of that effect. In this chapter, we limit our attention to one particular field of censorship study: the censorship of history. Although the censorship of history is a well-known and obvious area of interest, it has also been, until recently, a relatively underestimated and neglected field of systematic historical research. Scarcity and abundance of information about the censorship of history may be determined not only by the extent of the censors’ success (see paradoxes one and two), but also by very uneven research efforts (see paradox three). They make it often difficult to distinguish important and typical information about censorship from surrounding data and, hence, to identify patterns and trends in the relationships between history, power, and freedom.

The question of how we know when censorship occurred, therefore, presupposes transparent definitions of the set of concepts surrounding censorship and secrecy. The term censorship, the leading specialist in media law Eric Barendt wrote, is emptied of real meaning if it is applied to any social convention or practice that makes communication for some individuals more difficult.

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