Audience Sensitivity

Audience sensitivity is a very important part of the transaction process. Participants need to be active and paying attention, and not be distracted or bored. Audiences need to be actively involved in taking in and understanding the information, that is, they ``need to do far more than just `listen' or `absorb information'. In consequence, merely making information `available' on a website or elsewhere may fail completely as a communicative action'' (Manson & O'Neill 2007, p. 47). This is ultimately where a passive approach to informed consent in IT fails: simply disclosing information to an audience doesn't mean that they have received it. Linking through to a privacy policy or EULA does not provide an adequate informing process, and the problem with this audience insensitivity coupled with the other communicative issues listed above, really shows just how inappropriate the current mechanisms for dealing with informed consent are.

As we can see, there is far more to a successful communicative transaction for informed consent than simple disclosure and acceptance. Audiences need to be assessed for ways to attract their attention, and what sorts of beliefs and expectations they have when partaking in the information transaction. Each of the above criteria is required for a successful transaction, and only successful transactions lead to informed consent.