Meaningless data

Information Delivery and Truth-telling

Abstract

The paper aims to describe the information-delivering practice performed by whistleblowers in order to clarify the narrative role they denote in contemporary information warfare. This operation will affirm the semiotic dissolution of the meaning of revealed data in whistleblowers’ discourses compared with the linguistic meaning of the information delivered. To support this statement, by adopting a semiotic standpoint I will focus on the pragmatics of information delivery. Depending on the context, the information-delivering act performed may be articulated as a provided or a subversive one. Subsequently, using two semiotic squares, the whistleblowers’ information-delivering practice will be compared with those that define acts of espionage, trolling and fear-mongering: these positional roles of information delivery will be described on the basis of the law/crime and saying/doing semantic oppositions.