On The Right To Know

The dissertation was based on my LL.M. paper, "A Comparative Study on the Right to Know and Its Protection". The reasons why I would continue my study on the topic were as following. First, I had been caring for it because it was the basis of other political rights and was concerned with the distribution of social sources. Second, as a young scholar, I would rather earnestly probe into one topic than just glance at many topics. Third, I had made a study on the right to know from aspect of systems comparison. To lessen the distance between system construction and real lives, I had chosen the aspects of constitutional history and ideas. However, the distance still lay there. Fourth, there had been many articles on the right to know, but there seldom were intensive analysis. And while making the study, I gradually found the topic was quiet interesting and worthy to be discussed. If it was not limited to the right to know stipulated by laws, we could find the right to know have the same mechanism with language, costume, privacy, secrets, rumor, know-how, archives, credit, etc. In the dissertation, I tried to make an analysis on the right to know from aspects of information and social control to probe into its inherent principles and provide realistic basic for system construction. As information was its core, the right to know meant that the one asserting opening information conquered the one asserting information monopoly. And the right to know was closely related to the right of control.In the dissertation, I first introduced some systems concerning the right to know because system was just the basis of our thought. Then I compared systems of some distinguished countries and put forward my design of Chinese system of the right to know. I also talked about the defects of pure systematic methodology. After that, I probed into the related theories. Firstly, I talked about its connotation, subject, classification, etc. Then I evaluated the study in China, concluded the merits and shortcomings and pointed out what kind of effort we should make. Based on that, I made a brand new analysis using the methodologies of media, game theory,information economics, legal economic law, which was the basis of Part III. And in this part, I discussed the right to know in reality and made analysis on openness system, Wei Fu Si Fang and rumor.The reason why I still partly follow the traditional methodology was that I would not like to negate all of the present outcomes, or to make a brand new analysis on the right to know. I only hoped to find out the defects of pure systematic methodology, put forward a new theory and make new explanation to some phenomena. In the process, we could clearly find the difference between systematic right to know and realistic right to know.My analysis was normative in the first place because a comprehensive understanding of right to know in the world and China was the basis of our study. My analysis was socialistic because my aim was to make a realistic analysis as profound as possible. Besides, my analysis was economic because we cared for people's rationality based on the maxim interest. The main methodologies were comparison, information, relation, social control, game theory and informed economic.My contributions were as following. Firstly, I found out some new materials as I compared and summed up protection systems of distinguished countries and the outcomes of study on the right to know in China. Secondly, I grasped the core of the right to know, that is, "information". As the ownership of information would influence the ownership of social control, right to know meant the contest for social control. Third, I broadened the view of the right to know. I analyzed not only the systematic right to know, that is, the right stipulated by laws, but nonsystematic one, that is, the right in folks. I analyzed not only the right to know of people, but also the right of government. Fourth, the core of information enriched the methodologies. In the dissertation, I took many theories of media, sociology and information economics as reference.There were two main defects of the dissertation. One was my analysis on systems of the right to know was not very comprehensive. The other was that the transition of two parts using different methodologies was not very fluent.