Why Transparency?
The title of the well know book “The Transparent Society” (Vattimo, 1989) evokes the critical topic of “interpretation”, typical of the postmodern culture, where a leading role is played by technology and media. Day by day digital tools have changed and are still changing media, according to a dimension of pervasive and continuous interrelation between reality and “digitality” (wording coined by Negroponte in 1995). In our current “on line” life (The Onlife Manifesto, 2015), the concepts of “digital natives” and “digital immigrants” (Prensky, 2001) blurs (Jenkins, 2007). “Hyperreality” (Baudrillard, 1976) has grown, becoming simply a component of reality, and people have become shrewder in their relation with the sort of state of “augmented reality” that involves us. The relationship with technology renews: Its outcomes are constitutive of reality and of our culture, and therefore they requires knowledge, understanding, and assessment. The claim for digital heritage preservation (UNESCO, 2003), and the statement of digital heritage as common heritage ratifies the value and cultural importance of this new kind of artifacts, and consequently their significance in our post-postmodern condition.
The philosophical line of new realism (Ferraris, 2012) is not unrelated to this context: New realism roots on postmodern lesson and hermeneutics, but at the same time reckon with reality and perception; the characteristic of perception of being “opaque”, requires the need to be represented, i.e. interpreted.
In this context the claim for transparency follows. And a request for transparency underlies also the “European Charter of Rights of Citizens in the Knowledge Society” (aka “The Charter of eRights”) of 2005.