Wikileaks: Total Transparency. Limits and Possibilities of a Utopian Demand

Abstract

The Wikileaks story has put the idea of social and political transparency in complex societies like ours at center stage. However, it is not easy to elucidate the meaning of that concept. What does exactly such transparency entails? How can be measured the level of opacity in a given society? Is it reasonable to demand the State and its institutions full transparency? Is it possible to abolish secrecy? To what extent can these demands be fulfilled? Are Wikileaks’ deeds a major step on the path to greater transparency, as its supporters claim? These are some of the many questions sparked by the Wikileaks affair. In order to answer them, this article argues for a more complex understanding of the concept of transparency. We begin with a reconstruction of its historical development, then we proceed to examine its place in the mass communication system, followed by a critical analysis from sociological and semiotical points of view and the proposal of a feasible notion of information transparency.