Open letter

2025-06-06T16:32:41Z

71.28.147.154: /* Motivations for writing */

{{Short description|Letter intended for a wide audience}}
{{Other uses}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=May 2020}}
[[File:J'accuse.jpg|thumb|''[[J'Accuse…!]]'' is an influential open letter written by [[Émile Zola]] in 1898 over the [[Dreyfus Affair]].]]
[[File:Bill Gates Letter to Hobbyists.jpg|thumb|[[Bill Gates]]'s Open Letter to Hobbyists from the Homebrew Computer Club Newsletter, January 1976]]
An '''open letter''' is a [[Letter (message)|letter]] that is intended to be read by a wide audience, or a letter intended for an individual, but that is nonetheless widely distributed intentionally.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Guerra |first1=Cristela |title=The appeal of open letters and what it says about us - The Boston Globe |url=https://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/2016/03/01/shame-humiliation-and-rise-open-letter/PzIvho4MhPl9lEYWiFbLzH/story.html |access-date=31 May 2020 |work=[[BostonGlobe.com]] |date=1 March 2016}}</ref><ref name=":0">{{cite news |last1=O'Shea |first1=Samara |title=An Open Letter ... About Open Letters |url=https://www.npr.org/2012/03/22/148979521/an-open-letter-about-open-letters |access-date=31 May 2020 |work=NPR.org |date=March 22, 2012 |language=en}}</ref>

Open letters usually take the form of a [[letter (message)|letter]] addressed to an individual but are provided to the public through [[newspaper]]s and other media, such as a [[letter to the editor]] or [[blog]].<ref name=":1" /> Critical open letters addressed to political leaders are especially common.

Two of the most famous and influential open letters are ''[[J'accuse...!]]'' by [[Émile Zola]] to the president of France, accusing the French government of wrongfully convicting [[Alfred Dreyfus]] for alleged espionage; and [[Martin Luther King Jr.]]'s 1963 "[[Letter from Birmingham Jail]]", including the famous quotation "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere".<ref name=":1">{{cite news |title=The rise of the open letter |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-12809682 |access-date=31 May 2020 |work=BBC News |date=23 March 2011}}</ref>

==Context==
In previous centuries, [[Letter (message)|letter writing]] was a significant form of communication. Letters were normally kept private between the sender and recipient. Consequently, an open letter, usually published in a newspaper or magazine, was a then-rare opportunity for the general public to see what a public figure was saying to another public figure.<ref name=":2">{{Cite news |last=Filipovic |first=Jill |date=2023-11-10 |title=The Most Confusing Activism Around the Israel-Hamas War |language=en-US |work=Slate |url=https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/11/israel-palestine-open-letters-universities-writers-hamas-gaza.html |access-date=2023-11-12 |issn=1091-2339}}</ref> Open letters, published in newspapers, became more common in the late 19th century.<ref name=":1" />

In the 21st century, documents labeled open letters are common and similar to [[press releases]], with large volumes of open letters being sent automatically to large volumes of newspapers and other publications.<ref name=":2" /><ref name=":1" /> In other cases, blog posts and posts on social media are considered open letters.<ref name=":0" /> Another shift in the 21st century is the increasing prevalence of open letters with many signatories (similar to an [[online petition]]).<ref name=":1" />

When academic scientists publish open letters about science, they may use some of the same features that they use in academic writing, such as seeking informal [[Scholarly peer review|peer review]] before publication or believing that the act of communicating itself is a meritorious scholarly activity.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Graminius |first=Carin |date=2020-06-16 |title=Conflating scholarly and science communication practices: the production of open letters on climate change |url=https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/JD-01-2020-0015/full/html |journal=Journal of Documentation |language=en |volume=76 |issue=6 |pages=1359–1375 |doi=10.1108/JD-01-2020-0015 |issn=0022-0418|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

==Motivations for writing==
There are a number of reasons why an individual would choose the form of an open letter, including the following reasons:
* To publicly criticize something<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":3">{{Cite journal |last1=Howard-Hassmann |first1=Rhoda E. | author-link = Rhoda E. Howard-Hassmann |last2=McLaughlin |first2=Neil |date=August 2022 |title=Ideacide: How On-Line Petitions and Open Letters Undermine Academic Freedom and Free Expression |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/861292 |journal=Human Rights Quarterly |language=en |volume=44 |issue=3 |pages=451–475 |doi=10.1353/hrq.2022.0023 |issn=1085-794X|url-access=subscription }}</ref>
* To make a power play in shaping public opinion on an issue or framing a dispute
* To state the author's opinion<ref name=":1" />
* As an attempt to start, or to end,<ref name=":3" /> a wider dialogue around an issue
* As an attempt to focus broad attention on the letter's recipient, prompting them to some action
* As part of [[Crisis communication|public relations crisis communication]] or organizational [[reputation management]]<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Liu |first1=Jiangmeng |last2=Hong |first2=Cheng |last3=Yook |first3=Bora |date=2022-05-27 |title=CEO as "Chief Crisis Officer" under COVID-19: A Content Analysis of CEO Open Letters Using Structural Topic Modeling |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1553118X.2022.2045297 |journal=International Journal of Strategic Communication |language=en |volume=16 |issue=3 |pages=444–468 |doi=10.1080/1553118X.2022.2045297 |issn=1553-118X|url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Compton |first1=Josh |last2=Compton |first2=Jordan L. |date=June 2023 |title=Playoff Losses, Mayoral Politics, Image Repair, and Inoculation: Open Letter Sport Communication |url=http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/21674795211067471 |journal=Communication & Sport |language=en |volume=11 |issue=3 |pages=616–633 |doi=10.1177/21674795211067471 |issn=2167-4795|url-access=subscription }}</ref>
* For [[humor]] value
* To make public a communication that must take place as a letter for reasons of [[formality]]

== Problems ==
[[Eric Kaufmann]] characterizes the authoring of open letters in [[academia]] calling for the dismissal of academics as a form of "hard authoritarianism" accompanying [[political correctness]] and [[cancel culture]].<ref>{{cite report|surname=Kaufmann|given=Eric Peter|author-link=Eric Kaufmann|date=2021-03-01|title=Academic Freedom in Crisis: Punishment, Political Discrimination, and Self-Censorship|url=https://cspicenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/AcademicFreedom.pdf|publisher=Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology|docket=2|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210307171005/https://cspicenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/AcademicFreedom.pdf|archive-date=2021-03-07|quote=Hard authoritarianism entails no-platforming, dismissal campaigns, social media mob attacks, open letters, and formal complaints and disciplinary action, and stems mainly from a subgroup of illiberal far-left activist staff and students. I find that only a small minority of academic staff are protagonists. Figure 1 shows support for cancellation across five surveys and five hypothetical scenarios involving controversial academics.}}
*{{cite web |author=Eric Kaufmann |date=2021-03-01 |title=Academic Freedom in Crisis: Punishment, Political Discrimination, and Self-Censorship |website=Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology |type=Executive summary |url=https://cspicenter.org/reports/academicfreedom/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210301071054/https://cspicenter.org/reports/academicfreedom/ |archive-date=1 March 2021 }}</ref> Others associate open letters with bullying, divisiveness, [[safetyism]] (suppressing ideas to ensure a reader's immediate emotional comfort), and a culture of complaining.<ref name=":3" /> Online open letters have some qualities in common with [[Gossip Girl|gossip]], including the impossibility of un-saying what has been disseminated and its use by marginalized groups to complain about others.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Wong Ken |first=Steph |date=Spring 2023 |title="Worlds appear from her big mouth": The Mutiny of Online Open Letters |url=https://cmagazine.com/articles/worlds-appear-from-her-big-mouth-the-mutiny-of-online-open-letters |access-date=2023-11-12 |website=C Magazine |language=en}}</ref>

Open letters tend not to [[win hearts and minds]], especially if there is a limited connection between the writers, the subject, and the nominal addressee.<ref name=":2" /> A close connection, such as university faculty writing to the university president about their hopes and goals for university students, is more likely to be effective at influencing a decision than an absent or distant connection, such as students writing to the internet at large about the students' beliefs about a political situation in a country that most of the students have never visited.<ref name=":2" />

Signatories may feel pressured to sign an open letter written by someone else instead of writing their own.<ref name=":2" /> Even if the letter is badly written or does not fully or accurately reflect each signer's own views, to refuse to endorse it may be taken as complete disagreement with the general concept.<ref name=":2" /> In other cases, the signer may not fully understand the contents.<ref name=":2" />

==Examples==

* "[[Yorkshire Slavery]]" by abolitionist [[Richard Oastler]] in 1830, about exploitative [[Child labour|child labor]] practices in English textile mills<ref name=":1" />
* ''[[J'accuse...!]]'' by journalist [[Émile Zola]] in 1898, about the [[Dreyfus affair]] in France<ref name=":0" />
* "[[Letter from Birmingham Jail]]" by civil rights leader [[Martin Luther King Jr.]] in 1963, about racism and [[Civil rights movement|civil rights]]<ref name=":0" />
* Letter to ''The Times,'' signed by 364 economists in 1981, urging then-Chancellor [[Geoffrey Howe]] to adopt a different economic policy (he refused)<ref name=":1" />
* "[[Stop Coddling the Super Rich]]" by billionaire [[Warren Buffett]] in 2011, which encouraged US politicians to [[Tax the rich|tax wealthy people more]]<ref name=":0" />
* "[[An Open Letter from Shah Ahmad Shafi to the Government and the Public]]" by [[Shah Ahmad Shafi]], which called on the Bangladesh government to take action against the anti-Islamic activities of [[2013 Shahbag protests|Shahbag protests]].<ref name=":WP">{{Cite book |title=[[White Paper: 2000 Days of Fundamentalist and Communal Violence in Bangladesh]] |publisher=Public Commission to Investigate Fundamentalist and Communal Terrorism |year=2022 |location=Mohakhali, Dhaka-1212 |page=52 |language=bn}}</ref>

==See also==
* [[Epistolary poem]]
* [[List of open letters by academics]]
* [[Persuasive writing]]
* [[Polemic]]
* [[White paper]]

{{Commons category|Open letters}}

==References==
{{Reflist}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Open Letter}}
[[Category:Open letters|*]]
[[Category:Letters (message)]]
[[Category:Activism by type]]

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Open letter