Web 2.0时代的各类信息技术给隐私与监控这两个互相竞争与依存的概念带来了挑战。了解这些挑战必须首先从历史的角度理解这两个概念在东西方的不同解读。其次,随着各类信息技术的发展,现代组织对其成员的监控行为渗透到各个方面,从而导致在工作场所中这两个概念的矛盾日益加深,这一现象值得深入研究。已有相关理论文献及数据报告显示:在数字时代,组织监控的概念需要被重新审视,因为传统意义上的垂直监视呈逐渐扁平化的水平模式;在组织中,个人隐私权这一概念需要被重新定义;组织通过Web 2.0应用获得雇员信息的权利以及利用这些信息的权利应该被定义和规范。最后,已有的实证研究及现实案例表明,未来该话题的研究需跳脱表像描述模式,而更偏向概念理论研究以及对策探讨。
Under fast development of Internet technology, several problems related to ethics have emerged in the modern society, among which the tension between surveillance and privacy is salient. This paper is a literature review of theoretical pieces, empirical researches and specific cases to understand the problems of such conflict and hence to provide research directions for future studies. In order to understand the dynamics behind this pair of conflicting concepts, examining the definitions of these two concepts under the historical and cultural backgrounds is necessary. Thus, this paper firstly presents different understandings of these two concepts from Western and Eastern perspectives to argue that in the digital era, when the West and East hemispheres merge in the Internet, different perceptions of these two concepts are the first problem of the conflict between surveillance and privacy. Then, this paper turns to the detailed setting of organizational communication claiming that workplace is another scenario of these two conflicting concepts. Using the statistical reports from American Management Association, this paper argues that the conflict between surveillance and privacy is becoming even more intense in the age of Web 2.0. Combining relevant theoretical pieces about this topic, this paper indicats that in modern organizations, the problems could be interpreted into three aspects: (1) organizational surveillance needs to be reexamined, because surveillance in modern organization has changed from vertical to delayering, even horizontal|(2) the concept of personal privacy in the modern organizations needs to be reconsidered as well, because the boundary of the private and the public has been blurred|and (3) what kind of information organizations can obtain from employees' social media and to what extent organizations can use the information to deal with working issues are unclear as well. At last, this paper examines relevant empirical studies and cases to understand the most current research trend of this topic. Based on the literature, this paper concludes that current research mostly focuses on descriptive data, but it does not echo with the aforementioned aspects of these two conflicting concepts. Following this logic, in the end, this paper suggests that the future research directions could be: (1) re-conceptualizing the definitions of surveillance and privacy in the Web 2.0 environment that can be accepted by both the East and the West|(2) setting up the boundary of privacy and surveillance in the organizational setting which can satisfy multiple stakeholders|(3) setting up some rules and norms even laws of protecting employees' ″privacy and organizations″ right of surveillance|and (4) developing some educational programs of surveillance and privacy in the modern society to help prevent employees and organizations from potential conflicts.
居然. 数字时代隐私和监控的双重困境: 组织传播在Web 2.0时代下的思考[J]. 浙江大学学报(人文社会科学版), 2015, 1(5): 191-199.
Ju Ran. The Dilemma of Privacy and Surveillance in the Digital Era: In the Context of Organizational Communication and Web 2.0 Environment. JOURNAL OF ZHEJIANG UNIVERSITY, 2015, 1(5): 191-199.