Call for Papers for the Dossier: "Cybersecurity - Information Integrity and National Sovereignty: The Cases of Brazil and China" 

November 21, 2024 

Information integrity is a term that has been used by national and international entities, such as the United Nations, as a counterpoint to the notion of disinformation. Researchers, public managers and various agents from organized civil society, who have dedicated themselves to diagnosing, designing and implementing mechanisms to combat disinformation, have recently decided to promote information integrity as one of these areas of action. 

This approach brings the issue in a positive perspective, in the sense of promoting something honest and not just combating something corrupt has been part of the range of actions to combat disinformation, such as, for example, the demand for measures that favor the existence of a plural media and serious journalism, committed to factual truth and the public interest. By emphasizing the positive element of the dialectic between honest information and disinformation, a new set of reflections and possibilities for action begin to emerge more clearly. 

The notion of information integrity, originally restricted to the fields of Computer Science or Business Administration, has been increasingly used in academia, government, legal and organized civil society in general, as a vital issue to confront, for example: i) Scientific denialism, especially in the environmental and public health areas. ii) Persecution of minorities, such as indigenous peoples, quilombolas[1], and the LGBTQIA+ community, or marginalized majorities, such as women and Afro-descendants. iii) Rise of demagogic, anti-popular, fascist and authoritarian political projects. 

Regarding the information production, integrity fundamentally refers to the truthfulness of the informational product. In terms of distribution, it pertains to the need to democratize information environments. In the sphere of circulation, it involves the socio-technical mediation of information flows. In the field of reception, consumption and use of information, it concerns the credibility attributed to information sources, as well as the relevance given to the information in circulation. 

In addition to the realms of production, distribution, circulation, and consumption of information there is another delicate issue: the preservation and custody of information, which entails its proper representation and organization, in terms of storage and metadata production, to facilitate its retrieval. 

In face of the immense amount of information currently in circulation, along with the socio-technical nature of digital platforms (which have become omnipresent and indispensable for most activities related to the production, distribution, circulation, consumption, preservation, and custody of information), this scenario acquires a political and geopolitical dimension that can affect the sovereignty of most nations, including Brazil. This is due to the concentration of physical and legal ownership of digital platforms and data centers capable of performing such storage in gigantic private profit-driven corporations, most of them located in the United States, whose majority shareholders are magnates from that country. 

In this context, without ever losing sight of the relationship between the integrity and veracity of information, the overall picture seems even more complex, since the control of information flows, their storage and custody, are subordinate to the corporate interests of the United States, which do not always converge with the public interest of other nations or the American people. On the other hand, China is the most significant exception in this scenario, in virtue of the independence of its platforms, search systems and data centers 

Considering this approach, Liinc em Revista opens this call for theoretical and applied research papers from all fields of scientific knowledge that discuss the following questions, always in conjunction with the general theme of the call: "Cybersecurity - Information Integrity and National Sovereignty: The Cases of Brazil and China". 

• Critical analysis of projects and experiences in Brazil. 

• Critical analysis of projects and experiences in China. 

• Cultural and ideological implications of cyber insecurity. 

• Threats to national sovereignty resulting from the absence of digital sovereignty. 

• Potential for sustainable economic and social development of digital sovereignty. 

• Political, economic and technological obstacles to Brazil’s digital sovereignty. 

• New scientifically based proposals for promoting information integrity, articulating the spheres of production, circulation, consumption, preservation, custody and recovery of information. 

• Ethical dimensions of information integrity and national sovereignty. 

• Regulation of digital platforms and diffuse rights. 

 

 

[1] Quilombolas were escaped slaves, inhabitants of quilombos, settlements in the interior of Brazil founded by people of African origin.