There’s an assumption with social media that new technologies inherently open up organizations to increasingly public discussion. This is  true to some degree. While social media allow for increased public discussion, this does not always translate to increased organizational openness.

Social media have in fact been ample ground for more spam, something predicted years ago since the newer technologies are extensions of web-based technologies from the late ‘90s that gave rise to porn being the most popular market on the Internet. Social media are another layer of opportunity for spam, porn and attack merchants.

One firm local to Reno, for example, mandates that its personnel post certain numbers of tweets for clients. The rationale here isn’t to be transparent, it is to attempt to create buzz in order to hopefully impact sales. Such an approach will likely fail even though it keeps the firm solvent and, perhaps, prosperous.

Transparency, in contrast, is a philosophical stance. Even journalists or news media organizations that like to brag about holding public officials to account are the among the least comfortable with transparency, something that has enabled a growing niche of media communicating direct to consumers, as the site ThisIsReno.com does.

A recent article at the Washington Post’s D.C. Sports Blog outlines this new dynamic:

“I think it’s something that you need to internalize: that we’re our own media company,” (Ted) Leonsis said … addressing The Post. “I announce things on my blog. I get 40 to 90,000 people coming to my blog, depending on the subject. I have a direct, unfiltered way to reach our audience now, and I think that harnessing that is what you have to do as ownership, because we are media brands. We’re in the subscription business. We call them season-ticket holders. We’re in the sponsorship business. We’re in the same business [as The Post]. When someone goes to find out something about me or a team or a player, and they go to Google and they type that in, I want to learn how to get the highest on the list, and I’ve done that. I don’t want The Washington Post to get the most clicks. I want the most clicks.”

It also works out that these media have turned the tables on traditional news outlets. The local daily newspaper’s publisher recently got arrested for a DUI. Only after it was noted on Twitter that a mugshot did not accompany the brief and buried article on the arrest did the paper post the photograph. This is despite the site’s aggressively marketed mugshot gallery, which to date does not feature the paper’s publisher; although, this could change since the paper has been known to alter content on its site after being outed for withholding key information in its reporting.

Even though the mugshot was eventually posted, it was obvious that the paper’s anonymous commenting system was also closed on the DUI story, and in a brief and buried follow-up. This was in stark contrast to the paper’s commenting system that is otherwise open to all levels of anonymous attacks on anyone who happens to be mentioned in a news story.

Fortunately some news media personnel do not adopt the same double standards Gannett advances.  When the local weekly’s editor got arrested for a DUI, it was a front-and-center story, a rare moment of journalistic excellence in the Reno market.

The difference is that one news outlet owned its story; the other tried to diminish its imperfection.

It goes to show that standards of transparency and openness are subject to interpretation, irrespective of social media. The climate today, however, forces transparency. The New York Times’ DealBook blog quotes Michael Fertik, CEO of Reputation.com:

“Everybody likes to believe in transparency, until it affects their personal lives. We’re reaching a tipping point, where radical transparency is getting close to radical invasion.”

A popular, formerly local blogger — ironically, a representative of the spam firm noted above — developed an online reputation for years, all under a pseudonym. Indeed, her blog was interesting, frequently relevant and she addressed issues about Reno that needed public airtime.

The minute her identity was public, her postings dropped notably and the edge anonymity previously afford her disappeared. She subsequently went on to publicly advocate for using social media to increase transparency — in government. (Presumably, individuals such as herself and firms like her employer were exempt from new standards of openness.)

By law, though, government is transparent. Salaries and salary schedules are posted online. Many, if not most, documents relevant to government business are public and available by request, social media notwithstanding.

What social media do is enable transparency. Without an incentive to be open in the first place, social media are but additional communication vehicles. That’s why so many, including the self-anointed champions of transparency, frequently clamor to the clouds while more genuine efforts at transparency may or may not ever get noticed. If information is public in the first place, newsworthiness is diminished.

An organization does not have to be transparent because of social media. It will, though, potentially feel the sting of what others say in social networks should they choose to hide something of interest from the sunlight — regardless of who they are and what they represent.

[Edited 2/2/11 for minor grammatical changes.]