Folly in the Fourth Estate: Editorial Cartoons and Conflicting Values in Global Media Culture

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher J. Gilbert
Keyword(s):  
18Th Century ◽  
Freedom Of Expression ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
Civil Liberty ◽  
The United States ◽  
Free Expression ◽  
Global Media ◽  
Fourth Estate ◽  
Editorial Cartoons ◽  
The Times

The editorial cartoon is a touchstone for matters of free expression in the journalistic tradition. Since their early inception in the politically charged engravings of 18th-century pictorial satirist William Hogarth to the present day, editorial cartoons have shone forth as signifiers of comic irreverence and mockery in the face of governmental authority and in the more generalized cultural politics of the times. In democratic nations they have been cast as a pillar of the fourth estate. Nevertheless, they—and the cartoonists, critics, commentators, and citizens who champion them—have also long stood out as relatively easy targets for concerns about where the lines of issues such libel, slander, defamation, and especially blasphemy should be drawn. This goes for Western-style democracies as well as authoritarian regimes. In other words, the editorial cartoon stands at a critical nexus of meaning and public judgment. At issue from one vantage is what it means to promote the disclosure of folly as the foolish conduct of public officials and the stupidity of institutions that are thereby worthy as objects of ridicule. From another vantage, there is the matter of what it is to deplore the comicality in journalistic opinion-making that goes too far. To approach editorial cartoons from the standpoints of free expression and press freedoms is to verge on conflicting values of civil liberty in and around the so-called right to offend. This was true in the age of Hogarth. It was true in the days of famed French printmaker and caricaturist Honoré Daumier, who was imprisoned for six months from 1832 until 1833 after portraying Emperor Louis-Philippe in the L Caricature. It is also particularly true today in a global media age wherein editorial cartoons, whether or not they are syndicated by official newspapers, can traverse geographic and other boundaries with relative ease and efficiency. Furthermore, the 21st century has seen numerous cartoon controversies vis-à-vis what many commentators have referred to as “cartoon wars,” leading to everything from high-profile firings of cartoonists (including in the United States) through bans and imprisonments of artists in Middle Eastern countries to the 2015 shootings of cartoon artists at the headquarters of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. Indeed, if the threshold of the free press is the killed cartoon, the limit point of the freedom of expression is the killed cartoonist. Hence the importance of looking beyond any one editorial cartoon or cartoonist in order to contemplate the comic spirit in certain historical moments so as to discover the social, political, and cultural standards of judgment being applied to the carte blanche of journalism and the comic license of those using graphic caricatures to freely editorialize their takes on the world—or not.

Illiberals and Autocrats Unite to Craft a New World Media Order

2019 ◽  
Vol 02 (04) ◽  
pp. 1950024
Author(s):  
James M. Dorsey
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
New World ◽  
Freedom Of Expression ◽  
World Order ◽  
The United States ◽  
Freedom Of The Press ◽  
New World Order ◽  
Fourth Estate ◽  
World Government ◽  
The Press

Underlying global efforts to counter fake news, psychological warfare and manipulation of public opinion is a far more fundamental battle: the global campaign by civilizationalists, illiberals, autocrats and authoritarians to create a new world media order that would reject freedom of the press and reduce the fourth estate to scribes and propaganda outlets. The effort appears to have no limits. Its methods range from seeking to reshape international standards defining freedom of expression and the media; the launch and/or strengthening of government-controlled global, regional, national and local media in markets around the world; government acquisition of stakes in privately-owned media; advertising in independent media dependent on advertising revenue; funding of think-tanks; demonization; coercion; repression; and even assassination. The effort to create a new media world order is closely linked to attempts to a battle between liberals and non-liberals over concepts of human rights, the roll-out of massive Chinese surveillance systems in China and beyond and a contest between the United States and China for dominance of the future of technology. The stakes in these multiple battles could not be higher. They range from basic human and minority rights to issues of transparency, accountability and privacy, human rights, the role of the fourth estate as an independent check on power, freedom of expression and safeguards for human and physical dignity. The battles are being waged in an environment in which a critical mass of world leaders appears to have an unspoken consensus on the principles of governance that should shape a new world order. Men like Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Victor Orbán, Benjamin Netanyahu, Mohammed bin Salman, Mohammed bin Zayed, Narendra Modi, Rodrigo Duterte, Jair Bolsonaro, Win Myint and Donald J. Trump have all to varying degrees diluted the concepts of human rights and undermined freedom of the press. If anything, it is this tacit understanding among the world’s foremost leaders that in shaping a new world order constitutes the greatest threat to liberal values.

scholarly journals Intermediary Liability and Private Speech Regulation: A Transatlantic Dialogue [Wikimedia/Yale Law School Workshop Report]

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tiffany Li
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Free Speech ◽  
Freedom Of Expression ◽  
The United States ◽  
Law School ◽  
Private Speech ◽  
Free Expression ◽  
Indirect Speech ◽  
Intermediary Liability

The Wikimedia/Yale Law School Initiative on Intermediaries and Information (WIII) at Yale Law School has released a comprehensive report synthesizing key insights “Intermediaries & Private Speech Regulation: A Transatlantic Dialogue,” an invitation-only workshop convened by WIII, featuring leading internet law experts from the United States and Europe.This report highlights insights and questions raised by leading academics and legal practitioners during the event, providing theoretical ideas, practical experiences, and directions for further research on rapidly evolving questions of intermediary liability from a uniquely transatlantic perspective. (Nothing in the report necessarily reflects the individual opinions of participants or their affiliated institutions.)Key takeaways from this report include the following:Europe and the United States must work together to protect online free expression and accessOn issues of intermediary liability and online speech, the United States and Europe have much more in common than not.Focusing too much on differences between Europe and the United States can lead to unproductive division of resources and intellectual efforts, particularly if the goal is to protect global democratic values of free expression and access.While the development of the early internet may have reflected primarily American values, today’s internet ecosystem is also shaped by the growing influence of the European Union.Future international standards must also include perspectives from other nations and regions, as the internet is global. Collaboration between countries on online speech issues can be helpful and should be encouraged.Regulatory solutions for online speech issues must address the entire internet ecosystemRegulating internet intermediaries is not enough to protect online speech. Regulations must conceptualize and regulate the growing data economy.Some large tech companies are now extremely powerful, with the largest intermediary companies having as much international negotiation power as nation-states.The increasingly disparate power of a few large tech platforms may also lead to a loss of decentralized discourse and increased difficulties for new competitors to enter the market.The law should protect free speech and expression rights against abuses from government as well as from corporations.Policymakers must narrowly tailor regulations to protect online free speech and expressionPolicymakers should avoid creating overly broad regulations and instead tailor regulations narrowly to best address consumer harms.One way to do this might be to craft regulations that distinguish between types of intermediaries or perhaps between types of harms.Another option for tailoring regulations is to craft regulations tailored toward protecting or managing different types of speech.There may also be alternative or additional models that include either hybrid state-industry regulatory regimes or models that give greater weight to civil society and to individuals.Industry and civil society must work together to combat harmful indirect speech regulationStates are using corporate terms of service and content takedown mechanisms as a form of indirect speech regulation. This indirect speech regulation is effectively a form of prior restraint.When states use intermediaries as proxies for speech regulation, this has a negative impact on rights to free speech and free expression.Indirect speech regulation lacks transparency, and there is no accountability or redress for citizens whose speech has been silenced.Practical strategies to fight against this problem include:1) calling for greater government transparency, through the FOIA process or through NGO audits;2) working with companies to gather information, for use in academic and policy research;3) advocating for individuals and groups who have been disproportionately harmed; and4) other forms of advocacy, including amicus briefs, policy papers, and impact litigation.New laws can create better models for future regulation of online speechBy analyzing failures of existing regulations and noting successes, academics and advocates can create better models for future regulations of online speech.Future regulatory models for protecting free expression online can draw from: U.S. legal concepts from media and telecommunications regulations, including the “must carry” obligation and consumer protection law; U.S. First Amendment and property law doctrine; European human rights law regarding freedom of expression; and precedent from both the United States and Europe regarding due process.Other new frameworks that can be useful in shaping future regulation include the information fiduciaries model and the implementation of strong duty of care standards.Regulatory models can also include incentivization of systemic, architectural solutions on the part of companies.

USA vs foreign intellectuals

1981 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-41
Author(s):  
Julio Cortázar ◽  
Marcelo Covián
Keyword(s):  
American Sociological Association ◽  
American Association ◽  
Freedom Of Expression ◽  
The United States ◽  
Free Expression ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
University Professors ◽  
International Human ◽  
The Government ◽  
Formed Part

Early in 1981 a report is expected from the government-appointed Select Commission on Immigration and Refugee Policy. Even if the commission recommends changes in the present US laws, it is not known whether Congress and the Executive will press to enact them. In the meantime further evidence has come to Index on Censorship about the effect of the law on the admission of foreign intellectuals to the United States, including statements by publishers, writers and professors about their experiences ( for further information see also Index on Censorship 5/1980, pp6–11). This evidence formed part of a brief arguing for repeal of Section 212( a) (28) of the Immigration and Nationality Act ( the McCarran-Walter Act) prepared by Tom Bernstein for submission to the Select Commission on behalf of nine US organisations concerned with defending freedom of expression. They are the Fund for Free Expression, the Lawyers Committee for International Human Rights, PEN American Center, the International Freedom to Publish Committee of the Association of American Publishers, the American Association of University Professors, the Helsinki Watch, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Sociological Association, and the American Library Association. We thank Mr Bernstein and the organisations he represents for making this material available to us.

The Rain Calls of Frogs and the Reigning Paradigm of American Herpetology

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-35
Author(s):  
Gordon L. Miller
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Animal Communication ◽  
The United States ◽  
Emotional States ◽  
Breeding Sites ◽  
Gradual Disappearance ◽  
The Times ◽  
Traditional Natural ◽  
Breeding Seasons ◽  
The Comparative Study

American zoologists and herpetologists during the past fifty years have successfully deciphered the mating calls of frogs and toads with ever increasing precision and sophistication. However, the vocalizations most commonly termed “rain calls,” which typically occur beyond both normal breeding seasons and breeding sites, have remained a persistent puzzle. This article traces the gradual disappearance of rain calls, along with a corresponding decline in any mention of emotional states, from herpetological studies of anuran vocalizations in the United States from the middle of the twentieth century to the present and examines the historical roots of this disappearance. This evaporation of rain calls is indicative of a much larger change in the scientific climate of the times involving the transition from traditional natural history to the Neo-Darwinian, adaptationist paradigm of contemporary biology. Rain calls thus increasingly became anomalous, thereby eliminating a possibly fruitful line of inquiry in the comparative study of human-animal communication, in this case with evolution's earliest vocalizers. The contours and benefits of a more encompassing paradigm, envisioned by some leading early twentieth-century zoologists, are briefly discussed.

Rediscovering Blackstone: wpływ Williama Blackstone’a na rozwój amerykańskiej nauki prawa w recepcji Alberta W. Alschulera

2017 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 175-185
Author(s):  
Edyta Sokalska
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Common Law ◽  
The United States ◽  
Law School ◽  
Large Measure ◽  
American Colonies ◽  
Late 18Th Century ◽  
American Law ◽  
The Common

The reception of common law in the United States was stimulated by a very popular and influential treatise Commentaries on the Laws of England by Sir William Blackstone, published in the late 18th century. The work of Blackstone strengthened the continued reception of the common law from the American colonies into the constituent states. Because of the large measure of sovereignty of the states, common law had not exactly developed in the same way in every state. Despite the fact that a single common law was originally exported from England to America, a great variety of factors had led to the development of different common law rules in different states. Albert W. Alschuler from University of Chicago Law School is one of the contemporary American professors of law. The part of his works can be assumed as academic historical-legal narrations, especially those concerning Blackstone: Rediscovering Blackstone and Sir William Blackstone and the Shaping of American Law. Alschuler argues that Blackstone’s Commentaries inspired the evolution of American and British law. He introduces not only the profile of William Blackstone, but also examines to which extent the concepts of Blackstone have become the basis for the development of the American legal thought.

Systematic Government Access to Private-Sector Data in the United States II

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fred H. Cate ◽  
Beth E. Cate
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Private Sector ◽  
Freedom Of Expression ◽  
The United States ◽  
Freedom Of Information ◽  
Privacy Rights ◽  
Reasonable Expectation ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
The Us ◽  
Sector Data

This chapter covers the US Supreme Court’s position on access to private-sector data in the United States. Indeed, the Supreme Court has written a great deal about “privacy” in a wide variety of contexts. These include what constitutes a “reasonable expectation of privacy” under the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution; privacy rights implicit in, and also in tension with, the First Amendment and freedom of expression; privacy rights the Court has found implied in the Constitution that protect the rights of adults to make decisions about activities such as reproduction, contraception, and the education of their children; and the application of the two privacy exemptions to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

scholarly journals These Stories Must Be Told: Preliminary Observations by a Black Scholar Practitioner on Silences in the Archive

Collections ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 155019062098103
Author(s):  
Shonda Nicole Gladden
Keyword(s):  
Critical Race Theory ◽  
United States Of America ◽  
Social Enterprise ◽  
The United States ◽  
Oral Histories ◽  
Systemic Racism ◽  
Black Scholar ◽  
Arts And Humanities ◽  
The Times ◽  
Archival Practices

As a scholar practitioner, a trained philosophical theologian, Methodist clergywoman, and social enterprise founder who is conducting oral histories as part of my doctoral internship in the IUPUI Arts and Humanities Institute, my scholarly lens and methodological skills are being defined as I interrogate the COVID-19 archive. In this article I attempt to offer some preliminary reflections on my oral history curation focused on how Black and brown artists and activists, primarily based in Indianapolis, IN, frame their lived experiences of death, dying, mourning, and bereavement in the wake of COVID-19 utilizing critical archival practices: those practices that take seriously the methods of critical race theory, critical gender theory, Womanist, mujerista, and feminist methodologies, to name a few. The COVID-19 archive is a collection of oral histories, stories and artifacts depicting the times in which we are living, through the lenses of storytellers grappling with the pandemics of systemic racism, COVID-19, distrust in government, and various relics representing the idea of the United States of America in 2020, as such, I conclude with a brief exploration of how art emerges as both an outlet for creators and a mode of illumination for consumers.

FREE EXPRESSION OR EQUAL SPEECH?

2020 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 153-169
Author(s):  
Teresa M. Bejan
Keyword(s):  
Freedom Of Expression ◽  
Free Expression ◽  
Freedom Of Association ◽  
Classical Liberal ◽  
Freedom Of Thought ◽  
The Right ◽  
Equal Right ◽  
To Receive ◽  
The Ideal

AbstractThe classical liberal doctrine of free expression asserts the priority of speech as an extension of the freedom of thought. Yet its critics argue that freedom of expression, itself, demands the suppression of the so-called “silencing speech” of racists, sexists, and so on, as a threat to the equal expressive rights of others. This essay argues that the claim to free expression must be distinguished from claims to equal speech. The former asserts an equal right to express one’s thoughts without interference; the latter the right to address others, and to receive a hearing and consideration from them, in turn. I explore the theory of equal speech in light of the ancient Athenian practice of isegoria and argue that the equality demanded is not distributive but relational: an equal speaker’s voice should be counted as “on a par” with others. This ideal better captures critics’ concerns about silencing speech than do their appeals to free expression. Insofar as epistemic and status-harms provide grounds for the suppression and exclusion of some speech and speakers, the ideal of equal speech is more closely connected with the freedom of association than of thought. Noticing this draws attention to the continuing—and potentially problematic—importance of exclusion in constituting effective sites of equal speech today.

‘More Product, Less Process’ (MPLP): An early printed book project

2021 ◽  
pp. 096100062110267
Author(s):  
Karen Attar
Keyword(s):  
18Th Century ◽  
The United States ◽  
Global Changes ◽  
Main Research ◽  
Advantages And Disadvantages ◽  
Main Research Interest ◽  
Printed Books ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
19Th And 20Th Century

This article addresses the challenge to make printed hidden collections known quickly without sacrificing ultimate quality. It takes as its starting point the archival mantra ‘More product, less process’ and explores its application to printed books, mindful of projects in the United States to catalogue 19th- and 20th-century printed books quickly and cheaply with the help of OCLC. A problem is lack of time or managerial inclination ever to return to ‘quick and dirty’ imports. This article is a case study concerning a collection of 18th-century English imprints, the Graveley Parish Library, at Senate House Library, University of London. Faced with the need to provide metadata as quickly as possible for digitisation purposes, Senate House Library decided, in contrast to its normal treatment of early printed books, to download records from the English Short Title Catalogue and amend them only very minimally before releasing them for public view, and to do this work from catalogue cards rather than the books themselves. The article describes the Graveley Parish collection, the project method’s rationale, and the advantages and disadvantages of sourcing the English Short Title Catalogue for metadata. It discusses the drawbacks of retrospective conversion (cataloguing from cards, not books): insufficient detail in some cases to identify the relevant book, and ignorance of the copy-specific elements of books which can constitute the main research interest. The method is compared against cataloguing similar books from photocopies of title pages, and retrospective conversion using English Short Title Catalogue is compared against retrospective conversion of early printed Continental books from cards using Library Hub Discover or OCLC. The control groups show our method’s effectiveness. The project succeeded by producing records fast that fulfilled their immediate purpose and simultaneously would obviously require revisiting. The uniform nature of the collection enabled the saving of time through global changes.

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