Individual Submission Summary
Share...

Direct link:

End of Secrecy? Journalism, Whistleblowing and the Security State

Sun, May 24, 12:00 to 13:15, Caribe Hilton, Grand Salon Los Rosales

Abstract

Since 2010, the US and UK governments have been confronted with national security leaks unprecedented in their scale and scope. The global news spotlight on Wikileaks – and later Ed Snowden - apparently signified a new era of information chaos and fuelled the development of a "networked fourth estate" (Benkler 2011). This paper critically examines this through an in-depth case study of ‘Cablegate’ – the publication of stories relating to US diplomatic cables leaked through the digital whistleblowing platform Wikileaks. It finds that journalists actively ‘repaired’ narratives in line with elite source agendas (Bennett et al 1986). This was partly the result of a failure to adequately scrutinise official source definitions in regard to the legitimacy of the leaks, and partly through actively constructing a narrative of ‘hype’ that appeared to dismiss the public interest value of the leaks.

Author