PSIM Public Services Information Management
Essay title: Is public sector information 'neutral' ?
Signposts:
Ø Information as
encoded messages transmitted through channels
from a sender to a receiver
http://www.cultsock.ndirect.co.uk/MUHome/cshtml/index.html
is a classic source of the Shannon and
Weaver model. You may wish to consider
some of the basic elements:
a source; an encoder; a
transmitter; a message; a channel; a decoder; a receiver
From the point of view of
the social scientist, it is quite useful to think of channels (‘water pipes’)
and information as the
‘water’. However, consider the following problems…
(a) Is what is transmitted what
is received ? (Actually? Internalised?
Appreciated)
(b) What about ‘noise’ in the
system (which clutters up the message)
Ø The problem of
'information' when no information is transferred (' the dog not barking in the
night' Conan Doyle(?),Silver Blaze in
Collected Stories of Sherlock Holmes)
This an interesting problem – ‘if you
don’t hear from me assume that I’m OK because bad news travels fast!’ OR
‘management by exception – if you
don’t tell me, I assume that everything is all right!’
This problem depends upon prior
expectations being set up which have to be ‘broken’ by a communication that
alters the ‘default’ Problems with
this, though?
It s generally quite easy to see when a
graph shows something – but harder to spot when nothing appears to be happening
(e.g. the absence of a difference in the IT scores between male and female IT
technicians may say something quite significant about the attainments of female
IT technicians!)
Ø Organisational
power centres structure, collate and organise data
Whenever you look at a graph, table or what have you, think ‘Who applied what
mental processes to have the data supplied in this format? What picture of the universe does it convey?
Whose (or what) organisational priorities does it reflect (think about Best
Value data, for example, such as ‘truancy rates’) Data, particularly statistical data, tends to reflect the
priorities of the table compiler who unwittingly may be organising the
data in a particular way…
Ø The language
of communication, including 'shared universes of meaning'
All organisations and work groups will tend to use initials, acronyms and
‘short-hand words’ to facilitate fast and easy communication (e.g. in Hampshire
County Council we have HCC,CMT,LGR whilst in King Alfred’s we have
KAC,SQC,ASC,PRC etc.) This can be both
daunting and confusing to the newcomer until they ‘learn the lingo’
Understanding, using and communicating using these special languages and codes
helps to mark one out as a member of the club.
It is often outsiders who point out the funny side of these aspects e.g.
a visitor to the college who remarked about the arrangements for students who
had failed assignments ‘only in an Anglican college have I heard of people who
have to undertake an exercise in redemption! These specialised languages, sometimes known as argot when
applied to the criminal fraternity help to establish who is ‘one of us’ and who
is ‘one of them’. For this reason,
jokes often do not translate well across cultures, concepts have different
shades of meaning (e.g. bureaucracy is used almost as a term of abuse in
the general public but as a technically neutral term to social scientists
etc.) Linguistic analysis is quite
extensively used in the social sciences including the use of content
analysis i.e. measuring the frequency of space devoted to particular
items (such as foreign affairs in a
newspaper) and the tone of voice used in the description.
Ø The 'how' of
communication rather than the what (fonts, tones, colours)
In the same way that body language perhaps betrays our inner feeling
states, so too does the way in which we communicate our thoughts. So a
Times Roman font can be seen as formal (boring to some!), whilst Comic Sans MS can be seen as much more
informal (friendlier ? but too
informal?) for others. We may,
therefore convey something about ourselves in the way that we write e.g.
- does a sloppy, disorganised, mis-spelled, inconsistent document send messages
about the author ?
- does an overlong, latinate-style, pedantic style do the same
Colours have shared universes of meaning so that red is nearly always seen as a
warning and/or aggressive, some blues as cold/impersonal etc. This can be overdone and differs between
cultures e.g. white, not black, is a symbol of mourning in many Asian cultures.
I personally am of the view that how we say things sends off all kinds
of messages which can override what we say (e.g. a misplaced comma in it’s
can destroy our credibility to some, whereas for others it is seen as
nit-picking!
Ø Do all public
information providers 'spin'?
There are always two sides to every story and we can always maintain a
glass is half-empty rather than being half-full. Given the pressure
that public resources have been under for so many years, there may be a natural
desire to redress the balance. Putting
‘news’ into a particular context (e.g. news of regionalism given a context by
indicating the MORI poll that showed only lukewarm support) can be seen as
‘spin’ or as particularly effective news management depending upon your point
of view. Spinning is viewed
perjoratively as distortion, lying or evasion – but context-setting, putting
out a positive message is seen as the essence of modern good PR? Corporate
Communications. How would one determine
the boundary between the two?
Ø Lies,
damned lies and statistical data
The full quotation is ‘There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies
and statistics’(Benjamin Disraeli,1804-1881)
And I also like ‘He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts – for support rather than illumination@ (Andrew
Lang, Scottish Author) There is also
the ‘There are two kinds of statistics – the kind that you look up and the kind
that you make up’ (which may in Lucy in the Charlie Brown cartoon)
Statistics may be misleading presented (poor axes, inappropriate use of
diagrams) and this is poor professional practice. Statistics may be accurate but incomplete, or out-of-date.
The fact that the Disraeli quote is used so often may reveal that people are
(a) slightly unhappy that they are being bamboozled by statistical data (b) a
feeling that statistics are quoted inappropriately.
On the other hand, first year social students are often told that they should
be quoting statistical data rather than making ‘man in the argument in the pub’
type of wild generalisations.
Ø Media
professionals have their own professional agenda
The media are given advance press-briefings of particular events and know what
is ‘news-worthy’- every Press Office will have ‘embargoed – not for release
before 11.0 am on Monday….’ type press releases. But it is also possible to predict what can be considered ‘news’
or ‘non-news’ (e.g. ‘Dog bites Man’’ is a non-story but ‘Man bites Dog’ is
another matter). Does the release of
stores reveal a metropolitan, middle class view of the world (e.g. story about
the court case
in which the buyers successfully sued a vendor for the removal of
fixtures/fittings from a house was widely reported – because professionals
buy/sell houses more often? It’s a secret nightmare?) So it is possible to predict what might be considered news-worthy
because media professionals share the same ‘world’.
Also of course there are journalistic conventions e.g. what is the angle on
this ? line on this? Local interest? Human interest? Etc. Journalists and
politicians have a symbiotic
relationship i.e. each needs the other in this.
Ø What exactly
counts as the public sector?
This is not quite so easy to define as it used to be but we would now include:
~ central government and its agencies (and
also its quangos, including Higher Education)
~ local government (including teachers,
social workers, fire, police and emergency)
~ the NHS and Healthcare trusts
and we would exclude
~privatised utilities (gas, water, electricity)
~ what about Rail track (legally? De facto)
Airtraffic control (NATS) is now ‘officially’ in the private sector but might
be seen as public sector – but many private businesses (nursing homes?) only
exist because they are funded exclusively by the State (directly or indirectly)
We can measure by using (a) proportion of Gross Domestic Product or buy
(b)numbers (fulltime equivalent, not headcounts) employed. Trying to discern that is/is not public
sector often a confusing matter. In the
past, some utilities were constantly transferred from one side of the divide to
another (British Steel, British Road Services),Thomas Cook etc.
Ø Clarity v. Mixed
signals
It is possible that a single message can be confused or negated by a ‘mixed
signal’ Politicians may try to give
missed signals to keep all of their options open for when the political
wind/climate changes (‘I’ve been saying since 1987 that…’) Corporate
Communications tries to ensure that ‘everybody is singing from the same hymn
sheet’ (but even in this metaphor there are different voices, languages,
emphasis that reflect different positions and perspectives.
Note Mandy Rice-Davis in the Profumo scandal ‘Well, he would say that wouldn’t
he’ re. John Profumo scandal in 1963.
Feel free to include several of the above (7-8) dropping some themes whilst incorporating others.
Mike Hart
