This project combines iHub's value-driven approach to studying the social impact of digitisation with the group's interest in the history of the post-war public, political and administrative debate on citizenship, transparency and democracy.
The aim of the proposed PhD research is to trace how “privacy” has developed into a core value and dominant concept in the Dutch public debate from the 1970s onwards. To answer this question, a concept-historical study is conducted using philosophical insights about conflicts of values. This research is partly based on digital analyses of parliamentary debates and printed media. The results of this research will be incorporated into a dissertation that identifies key turning points and actors in the public debate, exposes patterns in the way public values are deployed and compete in this debate, and reconstructs the change of meaning in the public debate has gone through the concept of “privacy”.
