Information Research Weblog

I have just finished reading a brilliant book - a wonderful work of imagination, 'The piano tuner' by Daniel Mason. Quite apart from its literary quality, the book has an interesting 'sub-text' on the nature of official information. In the following, the speakers are, first, Dr. Carroll, Surgeon-Major in the Shan States of Burma towards the end of the 19th century, the second is the piano tuner, Edgar Drake:

'I know what the reports say.' He lit the cigar. 'If you read closely, you would know that the Indian Opium Act of 1878 prohibited the growing of opium in Burma proper; at the time we did not control the Shan States. This doesn't mean that there isn't pressure to stop. There is much more fuss about it in England than here, which is probably why so many of... us... who write the reports, are selective in what they say.'

'That makes me worry about everything else I have read.'

'I wouldn't. Most of what is written is true, although you will have to get used to the subtleties, to the differences between what you read in England and what you see here, especially anything to do with politics.'

Many years ago I read John Johnson's PhD thesis, 'The social construction of official information', and frequently thereafter recommended it to students as an example of what qualitative research can achieve when it is done well. It is necessary for all of us to remember that no official information, of any kind, is value free, or free from subjectivism, and when we read official reports on such things as the recent flooding of New Orleans, it will be wise to look for what isn't reported, as well as what is.