Visibility agents: Organizing transparency in the digital era

Abstract

Transparency is a complex and multifaceted communication phenomenon. In the current environment, demands for organizational transparency now come from a wide range of entities we term visibility agents, ranging from nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and global networks, on one hand, to activist coalitions and automated surveillance agents, on the other. We develop a framework to conceive of such visibility agents and the range of transparency demands that they make in the context of environmental issues, positing that visibility agents significantly shape and diversify transparency practices. We identify four major relationships between visibility agents and organizations— inquisitorial, adversarial, associative, and advocative—which are associated with specific kinds of transparency demands, requests, and imperatives: accountability, monitoring, disclosure, and secrecy. We illustrate each set of relationships with examples of environmental reporting practices, one of the most prominent areas of transparency management. Implications for both theory and research on transparency are discussed.