Anti-Corruption/ Wikileaks

As a society we desire to live in a world with government transparency, of late this idea has become central to us. Government Transparency mainly occurs via 4 channels:

• Proactive dissemination by the government themselves 
• The release of requested materials by the government
• Public meetings
• Leaks from 'whistleblowers' 

However as we escalate into a 'techsavy' era this idea has become almost effortless. There is now an increasing existence of digital activism, and we are presented with social media in a new light. Individuals are taking the issue of corruption into their own hands. ICT's (information and communication technologies) and social media now have a new role to play in disseminating information and reducing corruption within organisations, corporations and governments. The strengths of these anti-corruption social media strategies are:

• Collaboration
• Participation
• Empowerment
• Real time updates

A campaign called ACT- against corruption today is a global campaign developed by UNODC and UNDP which focus on how corruption holds back the efforts to achieve the international Millennium Development Goals and how it effects education, health, justice, democracy, prosperity and development. This campaign is linked to many social media sites to spread the word, that individuals have the right to say no and act against corruption. Such as a Facebook page- ACT-act against corruption today and Twitter- #actagainstcorruption. 

One of the most influential and well known online anti-corruption activist is Julian Asange. Julian Asange is associated with the organisation Wikileaks. Which is an international online, non-profit organisation which publishes secret information from anonymous sources.This organisation considers itself as similar to investigative journalists who aim to convey transparency to the world. Being used as an online tool it has the advantages of allowing for a faster and wider broadcast of information.

 There is much debate over the cost and benefits of the Wikileaks approach and on how individuals perceive Julian Asange, is he a whistleblower, terrorist, activist or hacktivist? I personally believe he is a combination of them, however I would not go as far to say he is a terrorist. My stance is that Julian Asange is taking a stand for our rights, he is exposing the government and their wrongdoings, revealing it for what it really is and embarrassing the nations involved. There are not many people out there as courageous and brave to publicly take a stand against the government .

WikiLeaks ties in relatively well with Henry Jenkins (American media scholar) view of participatory culture, that individuals should not only act as consumers but also as contributors and producers of published media. WikiLeaks and Julian Assange does exactly that encourages both consumption of the media but to also be involved.

However there is also much contention around the future of Wikileaks and whether it will survive. There has been suggestions that the organisation may not actually be able to continue to exist, because the state combined create so much power and will eventually find a way to eradicate anyone who is willing and capable to expose them and there mysteries.    

References:

Kinsman, J. 2011 ‘Truth and Consequence: The Wikileaks Saga’ Policy Options Institute for research on public policy, Canada <http://www.irpp.org/po/archive/feb11/kinsman.pdf>

Bertot, J. C., Jaeger, P. T. and Grimes, J. M. Using ICTs to create a culture of transparency: E-government and social media as openness and anti-corruption tools for societies Government Information Quarterly 27 (2010) 264–271

Images from:

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http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-_ho1WESN_tI/T5YhptEoNqI/AAAAAAAAAPE/HvclXeJYDBs/s1600/La-saga-de-Wikileaks-III-1.jpg

http://en.trend.az/article_photo/wikileaks_051210.jpg

http://notsosocialmedia.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/assange_movie_wide-620x349.jpg?w=640