What does privacy mean in an age of virtual transparency?

Abstract

This dissertation exams the foundations of privacy in America today and the effects of rapidly advancing changes in information technologies that appear to threaten commonly held ideas about personal privacy. Among the problems that challenge any examination of privacy are the lack of a commonly agreed upon definition for the term, and the lack of a conceptual framework to organize the vast literature on the greater conception of privacy itself. This paper offers a new definition for privacy and proposes a conceptual framework for consideration as a way to organize more methodically the disparate conversations that have been contributed to the debate about privacy's value, content, and the ways and means privacy is claimed and achieved in the social, political and economic areas of life in America.

Date of Award

1-1-2008

Document Type

Dissertation

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