Boundaries of Privacy: Dialectics of Disclosure (Suny Series in Communication Studies)

Explores new ways to think about privacy and disclosure.

Offering a practical theory for why people make decisions about revealing and concealing private information, Boundaries of Privacy taps into everyday problems in our personal relationships, our health concerns, and our work to investigate the way we manage our private lives. Petronio argues that in addition to owning our own private information, we also take on the responsibility of guarding other people's private information when it is put into our trust. This can often lead to betrayal, errors in judgment, deception, gossip, and privacy dilemmas. Petronio's book serves as a guide to understanding why certain decisions about privacy succeed while others fail.

Sandra Petronio is Professor in the Department of Communication and School of Medicine at Wayne State University. She is the editor of Balancing the Secrets of Private Disclosures.