Communication & Visibility

This page is dedicated to supporting the study of issues related to the intersection of communication and visibility.

Below is a list of references that have been identified by scholars as particularly meaningful. If you have any suggestions for material to add to this list, please email us.

References:

Albu, O. S., & Wehmeier, S. (2014). Organizational transparency and sense-making: The case of Northern Rock. Journal of Public Relations Research, 26, 117-133.

Ananny, M., & Crawford, K. (2016). Seeing without knowing: Limitations of the transparency ideal and its application to algorithmic accountability. New Media & Society, 20(3), 973-989. doi: 10.1177/1461444816676645

Arellano-Gault, D., & Lepore, W. (2011). Transparency reforms in the public sector: Beyond the new economics of organization. Organization Studies, 32, 1029–1050.

Argyle, M., Lalljee, M., & Cook, M. (1968). The effects of visibility on interaction in a dyad. Human Relations, 21(1), 3-17.

Auger, G. A. (2014). Trust me, trust me not: An experimental analysis of the effect of transparency on organizations. Journal of Public Relations Research, 26, 325-343.

Bean, H., & Buikema, R. J. (2015). Deconstituting al-Qa’ida: CCO theory and the decline and dissolution of hidden organizations. Management Communication Quarterly, 29, 512- 538.

Bellmann, B. (1984). The language of secrecy. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

Berkelaar, B. L. (2014). Cybervetting, online information, and personnel selection: New transparency expectations and the emergence of a digital social contract. Management Communication Quarterly, 28(4), 479-506. doi: 10.1177/0893318914541966

Birchall, C. (2011). Introduction to ‘secrecy and transparency’: The politics of opacity and openness. Theory, Culture & Society, 28, 7–25.

Birnholtz, J., Bi, N., & Fussell, S. (2012). Do you see that I see?: Effects of perceived visibility on awareness checking behavior. Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Austin, Texas, USA.

Birnholtz, J., Dixon, G., & Hancock, J. (2012). Distance, ambiguity and appropriation: Structures affording impression management in a collocated organization. Computers in Human Behavior, 28(3), 1028-1035. doi: 10.1016/j.chb.2012.01.005

Birnholtz, J., & Ibara, S. (2012). Tracking changes in collaborative writing: Edits, visibility and group maintenance. Proceedings of the 2012 ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work, Seattle, Washington, USA.

Bok, S. (1989). Secrets: On the ethics of concealment and revelation. New York: Vantage Books.

boyd, d., Marwick, A., Aftab, P., & Koeltl, M. (2009). The conundrum of visibility. Journal of Children and Media, 3(4), 410-419. doi: 10.1080/17482790903233465

Brammer, S., & Millington, A. (2006). Firm size, organizational visibility and corporate philanthropy: An empirical analysis. Business Ethics: A European Review, 15, 6-18.

Bregman, A., & Haythornthwaite, C. (2001). Radicals of presentation in persistent conversation. Proceedings of the 34th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences. doi:10.1109/HICSS.2001.926499

Brighenti, A. (2007). Visibility: A category for the social sciences. Current Sociology, 55(3), 323-342. doi: 10.1177/0011392107076079

Christensen, L. T., & Cheney, G. (2015). Peering into transparency: Challenging ideals, proxies, and organizational practices. Communication Theory, 25, 70-90.

Christofides, E., Muise, A., & Desmarais, S. (2009). Information disclosure and control on Facebook: Are they two sides of the same coin or two different processes? CyberPsychology & Behavior, 12(3), 341-345. doi: 10.1089/cpb.2008.0226

Costas, J., & Grey, C. (2014). Bringing secrecy into the open: Towards a theorization of the social processes of organizational secrecy. Organization Studies, 35, 1423-1447.

Costas, J. & Grey, C. (2016). Secrecy at work: The hidden architecture of organizational life. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Costas, J. & Grey, C. (2016). Invisible organizations: Research Agenda. In Czarniawska, B. (Ed.), A research agenda for management and organization studies (pp.136-146). Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing.

Cranefield, J., Yoong, P., & Huff, S. L. (2015). Rethinking lurking: Invisible leading and following in a knowledge transfer ecosystem. Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 16(4), 213.

Criscuolo, P., Salter, A., & Sheehan, T. (2007). Making knowledge visible: Using expert yellow pages to map capabilities in professional services firms. Research Policy, 36(10), 1603-1619. doi: 10.1016/j.respol.2007.08.005

Cross, R., Borgatti, S. P., & Parker, G. (2003). Making invisible work visible: Using social network analysis to support strategic collaboration. California Management Review, 44, 25-46.

DeVito, M. A., Birnholtz, J., & Hancock, J. T. (2017). Platforms, people, and perception: Using affordances to understand self-presentation on social media. Proceedings of the 2017 ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work, Portland, Oregon, USA.

Dobusch, L., & Schoeneborn, D. (2015). Fluidity, identity, and organizationality: The communicative constitution of Anonymous. Journal of Management Studies, 52, 1005-1035.

Donath, J. (2007). Signals in social supernets. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13(1), 231-251. doi: 10.1111/j.1083-6101.2007.00394.x

Dwyer, M., Sahay, S., Scott, C. R., Dadlani, P. T., & McKinley, E. (2018). Technologies of concealment: Appropriateness, effectiveness, and motivations for hiding organizational identity. Western Journal of Communication, 82, 194-216.

Erickson, T., & Kellogg, W. (2000). Social translucence: An approach to designing systems that support social processes. ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction, 7, 59-83. doi: 10.1145/344949.345004

Fan, Z., Costas, J. & C. Grey (2017) Secrecy and communication: Towards a research agenda. Corporate Communications: An International Journal, 22, 562-566.

Flyverbom, M. (2015). Sunlight in cyberspace? On transparency as a form of ordering. European Journal of Social Theory, 18, 168-184.

Flyverbom, M., Leonardi, P., Stohl, C., & Stohl, M. (2016). Digital age| transparency: Mediation and the management of visibilities. International Journal of Communication; Vol 10.

Gibbs, J. L., Rozaidi, N. A., & Eisenberg, J. (2013). Overcoming the “ideology of openness”: Probing the affordances of social media for organizational knowledge sharing. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 19(1), 102-120. doi: 10.1111/jcc4.12034

Gibbs, J. L., Ellison, N. B., & Lai, C.-H. (2011). First comes love, then comes google: An investigation of uncertainty reduction strategies and self-disclosure in online dating. Communication Research, 38, 70-100. doi: 10.1177/0093650210377091

Hancock, J. T., Toma, C. L., & Fenner, K. (2008). I know something you don't: The use of asymmetric personal information for interpersonal advantage. Proceedings of the 2008 ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work, San Diego, CA, USA.

Hansen, H. K., Christensen, L. T., & Flyverbom, M. (2015). Introduction: Logics of transparency in late modernity: Paradoxes, mediation and governance. European Journal of Social Theory, 18(2), 117-131. doi: 10.1177/1368431014555254

Hansen, H. K., & Flyverbom, M. (2015). The politics of transparency and the calibration of knowledge in the digital age. Organization, 22(6), 872-889.

Haridimos, T. (1997). The tyranny of light: The temptations and the paradoxes of the information society. Futures, 29(9), 827-843. doi: 10.1016/s0016-3287(97)00035-9

Harter, L. M., Berquist, C., Titsworth, B. S., Novak, D., & Brokaw, T. (2005). The structuring of invisibility among the hidden homeless: The politics of space, stigma, and identity construction. Journal of Applied Communication Research, 33, 305-327.

Hogan, B. (2010). The presentation of self in the age of social media: Distinguishing performances and exhibitions online. Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society, 30(6), 377-386. doi: 10.1177/0270467610385893

Hudson, B. A. (2008). Against all odds: A consideration of core-stigmatized organizations. Academy of Management Review, 33, 252-266.

Hudson, B. A., & Okhuysen, G. A. (2009). Not with a ten-foot pole: Core stigma, stigma transfer, and improbable persistence of men’s bathhouses. Organization Science, 20, 134-153.

Hudson, B. A., & Okhuysen, G. A. (2014). Taboo topics: Structural barriers to the study of organizational stigma. Journal of Management Inquiry, 23, 242-253.

Jensen, P. R. & R. J. Meisenbach (2015) Alternative organizing and (in)visibility: Managing tensions of transparency and autonomy in a nonprofit organization. Management Communication Quarterly, 29, 564-589.

Jones, G. R. (1984). Task visibility, free riding, and shirking - explaining the effect of structure and technology on employee behavior. Academy of Management Review, 9(4), 684-695.

Kallinikos, J. (1995). The architecture of the invisible: Technology is representation. Organization, 2(1), 117-140. doi: 10.1177/135050849521006

Leonardi, P. M. (2014). Social media, knowledge sharing, and innovation: Toward a theory of communication visibility. Information Systems Research, 25(4), 796-816.

Leonardi, P. M. (2015). Ambient awareness and knowledge acquisition: Using social media to learn who knows what and who knows whom. MIS Quarterly, 39(4), 747-762.

Leonardi, P. M., & Treem, J. W. (2012). Knowledge management technology as a stage for strategic self-presentation: Implications for knowledge sharing in organizations. Information and Organization, 22(1), 37-59. doi: 10.1016/j.infoandorg.2011.10.003

Madden, M., Fox, S., Smith, A., & Vitak, J. (2007). Online identity management and search in the age of transparency. Pew Internet and American Life Project.

Nardi, B. A., & Engestrom, Y. (1999). A web on the wind: The structure of invisible work. Computer Supported Cooperative Work, 8, 1-8. doi: 10.1023/A:1008694621289

Parker, M. (2016). Secret societies: Intimations of organization. Organization Studies, 37, 99-113.

Pearce, K. E., Vitak, J., & Barta, K. (2018). Privacy at the Margins| Socially Mediated Visibility: Friendship and Dissent in Authoritarian Azerbaijan. International Journal of Communication, 12, 22.

Pinch, T. (2010). The invisible technologies of goffman's sociology from the merry-go-round to the internet. Technology and Culture, 51(2), 409-424.

Quattrone, P., & Hopper, T. (2006). What is IT? SAP, accounting, and visibility in a multinational organisation. Information and Organization, 16, 212-250.

Ringel, L. (2018). Unpacking the transparency-secrecy nexus. Frontstage and backstage behavior in a political party. Organization Studies. doi: 10.1177/0170840618759817

Sahay, S., Dwyer, M., Scott, C. R., Dadlani, P. T., & McKinley, E. (2017). Organizations in hiding: Appropriateness, effectiveness, and motivations for concealment. Electronic Journal of Communication, 27(1). Available at http://www.cios.org/opngetabsfromtoc/IBFAG.E53@.

Schnackenberg, A. K., & Tomlinson, E. C. (2014). Organizational transparency: A new perspective on managing trust in organization-stakeholder relationships. Journal of Management, 42(7), 1784-1810. doi: 10.1177/0149206314525202

Scott, C. R. (2013). Anonymous Agencies, Backstreet Businesses, and Covert Collectives: Rethinking Organizations in the 21st Century. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Scott, C. R. (2013). Hidden organizations and reputation. In C. E. Carroll (Ed.), The handbook of communication and corporate reputation (pp. 545-558). Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell.

Scott, C. R. (2015). Bringing hidden organizations out of the shadows: Introduction to the special issue. Management Communication Quarterly, 29, 503-511.

Scott, C. R. (forthcoming). Dark behaviors and shadowy places: Bullying, abuse, and harassment as linked to hidden organizations. In P. D’Cruz, E. Noronha, L. Keashly, and S. Tye-Williams (Eds)., Handbooks of workplace bullying, emotional abuse and harassment: Special topic and particular occupations, professions and sectors.

Scott, C. R., & Haseki, M. (2015). Communication, visibility, and the informal economy: A framework for future research. In P. Godfrey (Ed.), Management, society, and the informal economy (pp. 42-59). New York: Routledge.

Scott, C. R., & Kang, K. (2017). Invisible domains and unexplored terrains: A multi-level view of (in)appropriately hidden organizations. In P. Salem and C. E. Timmerman (Eds.), Transformative practice and research in organizational communication (pp. 43-61). Hershey, PA: IGI Global.

Scott, C. R., & Sahay, S. (2018). Hide and don’t seek: Analyzing strategies for concealing organizations and their members. Atlantic Journal of Communication, 26(3), 131-148.

Sergeeva, A., Huysman, M., Soekijad, M., & van den Hooff, B. (2017). Through the eyes of others: How onlookers shape the use of technology at work. MIS Quarterly, 41(4).

Sergi, V., & Bonneau, C. (2016). Making mundane work visible on social media: A CCO investigation of working out loud on twitter. Communication Research and Practice, 2(3), 378-406. doi: 10.1080/22041451.2016.1217384

Shapin, S. (1989). The invisible technician. American Scientist, 77, 554-563.

Star, S. L., & Strauss, A. (1999). Layers of silence, arenas of voice: The ecology of visible and invisible work. Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW), 8(1), 9-30. doi: 10.1023/A:1008651105359

Stohl, C., & Stohl, M. (2011). Secret agencies: The communicative constitution of a clandestine organization. Organization Studies, 32(9), 1197-1215. doi: 10.1177/0170840611410839

Stohl, C., Stohl, M., & Leonardi, P. M. (2016). Managing opacity: Information visibility and the paradox of transparency in the digital age. International Journal of Communication, 10, 15.

Suchman, L. (1995). Making work visible. Communications of the ACM, 38(9), 56-64. doi: 10.1145/223248.223263

Szostek, A. M., Karapanos, E., Eggen, B., & Holenderski, M. (2008). Understanding the implications of social translucence for systems supporting communication at work. Proceedings of the 2008 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (pp. 649-658). doi:10.1145/1460563.1460664

Timonen, H., & Vuori, J. (2018, January). Visibility of work: How digitalization changes the workplace. In Proceedings of the 51st Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences.

Thompson, J. B. (2005). The new visibility. Theory, Culture & Society, 22(6), 31-51. doi: 10.1177/0263276405059413

Treem, J. W. (2015). Social media as technologies of accountability: Explaining resistance to implementation within organizations. American Behavioral Scientist, 59(1), 53-74. doi: 10.1177/0002764214540506

Treem, J. W., & Leonardi, P. M. (2013). Social media use in organizations: Exploring the affordances of visibility, editability, persistence, and association. Annals of the International Communication Association, 36(1), 143-189. doi: 10.1080/23808985.2013.11679130

Van Osch, W., & Steinfield, C. W. (2018). Strategic visibility in enterprise social media: Implications for network formation and boundary spanning. Journal of Management Information Systems, 35(2), 647-682. doi: 10.1080/07421222.2018.1451961

Wahl-Jorgensen, K., Bennett, L., & Taylor, G. (2017). The normalization of surveillance and the invisibility of digital citizenship: Media debates after the Snowden revelations. International Journal of Communication, 11, 740-762.

This list was inspired and instigated by a “Blue Sky Session” at the 2018 International Communication Association Conference held in Prague, Czech Republic. A specific thanks to Craig Scott, Michael Stohl, Anu Sivunen, Katie Kang, Molly Mao, and Leopold Ringel for contributing references.