Paper long abstract:

Edward Snowden's revelations triggered a shift from utopian towards dystopian notions of big data and the internet. The paper provides a theoretical-conceptual contribution to central terms in this debate. The main thesis is that transparency forms an essential prerequisite of democratic governance, but cannot substitute for regulation. For investigating the interrelationship between transparency, technical surveillance, privacy, and democracy, we must seek to clarify these concepts in the digitized information society.

"Transparency" is related to concepts of openness and the public sphere. We need to distinguish between formal transparency (availability of information), and cognitive transparency (comprehensibility) (Beck 2013). Transparency and publicity form normative ideals in liberal democracies. The ambiguity between transparency and surveillance, and different concepts of panoptical (Bentham, Foucault 1992), and post-pan-optical (Baumann 2003) control in contemporary societies shall be discussed.

Transparency is not only metaphoric and descriptive, but always implies prescriptive notions. Therefore, the "shadows" of transparency must also be kept in mind, as veiling and unveiling, covering and discovering become intertwined and co-constitutional (Kilian 2013). Followings this dialectics, we therefore have to inquire the selectivity of transparency, as understanding and knowledge require situatedness, contexts, and interpretation. The openness of data does not yet mean transparency of politics, corporations, or individuals. Media attentiveness, issue framing, and reception have to be taken into account. Transparency's interrelationship with freedom, responsibility, and democratic accountability will be assessed. Hence, transparency is a necessary precondition for democratic governance - but it does not form a substitute for democracy and regulation (Etzioni 2013).