Positive Free Speech: A Democratic Freedom

2021 ◽  
pp. 230-248
Author(s):  
Andrew T. Kenyon
Keyword(s):  
Free Speech ◽  
Freedom Of Speech ◽  
Media Freedom ◽  
Public Speech ◽  
Positive Freedom ◽  
Negative Liberty ◽  
Structural Dimensions ◽  
Democratic Freedom ◽  
Legal Right

This chapter explores the positive structural dimensions of the freedom of speech by using a democratic free speech rationale. While far from the only aspect of positive free speech, it offers a useful example of the freedom’s positive dimensions. The chapter focuses on legal conditions underlying public speech and their links to democratic constitutional arrangements. It outlines the general approach before drawing brief comparisons with two well-known US approaches to free speech and media freedom. The chapter then highlights two of the multiple ways in which ‘positive’ can be used in relation to free speech. Positive may concern positive freedom, the idea that freedom is not only a negative liberty but requires support or enablement. It can also be used in terms of a positive right, typically a legal right enforced through courts.

scholarly journals EDITORIAL: Free speech in Fiji

2009 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-8
Author(s):  
David Robie
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Free Speech ◽  
Freedom Of Speech ◽  
Universal Declaration ◽  
Military Government ◽  
Media Freedom ◽  
Coup D'etat ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Military

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart informa tion and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.- Article 19, Universal Declaration of Human Rights When military strongman Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama staged his creeping coup d’état on 5 December 2006—Fiji’s fourth in two decades—he was quick to declare: ‘We will uphold media freedom’ (cited in Foster, 2007). Barely two and a half years later, when he finished off the job with a putsch—dubbed ‘coup 4.5’ by some—and after having expelled three publishers, two New Zealand diplomats and five journalists over the intervening period, he told Radio New Zealand freedom of speech ‘causes trouble’ and must be curbed to allow the military government do its work (Bainimarama: Free speech ‘causes trouble’, 15 April 2009).

Autonomy and Free Speech

2021 ◽  
pp. 60-81
Author(s):  
Catriona Mackenzie ◽  
Denise Meyerson
Keyword(s):  
Free Speech ◽  
Freedom Of Speech ◽  
The State ◽  
Social Conditions ◽  
The Public ◽  
Negative Liberty ◽  
The Social ◽  
Positive Duties ◽  
Negative Duty ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter evaluates the relationship between autonomy and freedom of speech, examining a variety of autonomy-based justifications for the importance of speech and especially of freedom of speech. The differences between these justifications relate not only to the different conceptions of autonomy that underpin them, but also to their different responses to the problem of competing autonomy interests. It is plausible to think that the state should respect, protect, and promote the autonomy of everyone—speakers, listeners, thinkers, bystanders, and members of the public at large. Enhancing the autonomy of some might, however, require restricting the speech of others. The liberty-based conceptions of autonomy prioritize the interests of speakers and listeners and hold that the primary obligation of the state is the negative duty not to interfere with the autonomy of individual speakers and listeners. By contrast, the relational conceptions of autonomy hold that the negative liberty interests of individual speakers and hearers should be balanced against the positive duties of the state to promote the social conditions necessary for the development and exercise of autonomy by all citizens.

scholarly journals Freedom of Expression and Communicative Equality

2014 ◽  
Vol 23 ◽  
pp. 35-50
Author(s):  
Renato Francisquini
Keyword(s):  
Free Speech ◽  
Freedom Of Expression ◽  
Fair Value ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Press Freedom ◽  
Central Feature ◽  
Media Freedom ◽  
Negative Liberty ◽  
Collective Self ◽  
Individual Self

This paper addresses the normative issue of free speech within the landscape of democratic societies where the mediated form of communication appears as a central feature. Contemporary discussions about free speech tend assimilate press freedom to a notion of freedom of expression as a negative liberty, so repudiating every single regulation to the mass media. In opposition to that line of thought, I argue that media freedom cannot be justified by analogy with negative liberty. The most convincing justification for the principle of freedom of expression relies on the idea of the fair value of communicative liberties, or the idea that society must assure fair opportunities for the exercise of communication. Following this account, I affirm that the institutions responsible for mediating the expressive acts should be structured in a way that contributes, at once, to individual self-determination and collective self-government.

scholarly journals Media freedom and state control in Tonga

2010 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 62-80 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sione Fatanitavake Vikilani
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Free Speech ◽  
Freedom Of Speech ◽  
Media Industry ◽  
State Control ◽  
Media Freedom ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Government

The Tongan Constitution guarantees free speech and media freedom but this guarantee has often been misunderstood and misinterpreted by the media industry, the government and politicians alike. Freedom of speech was integrated into the Constitution from the beginning in 1875. However, as history has shown, this freedom has often been altered to silence opposition and critics’ voices. As early as 1882, the Tongan media had their first confrontation with the government and in 2003 saw a parallel incident unfolding. This article examines the influence of state control on the media in Tonga through an analysis of two case studies from different eras in Tongan history: the Niuvakai newspaper in 1882 and the Taimi ‘o Tonga newspaper in 2003.

The Logic of ‘But’: Quarrels, Literature and Democracy

Paragraph ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 114-130
Author(s):  
Thomas Docherty
Keyword(s):  
Free Speech ◽  
Freedom Of Speech ◽  
The Way

This paper looks at intrinsic disputation within proposition, and specifically within propositions that offer a moderated version of the freedom of speech and expression. It begins from a consideration of what is at stake in Othello's ‘Rude am I in my speech’, a rhetorical gesture that frames an act of great eloquence, and in which the eloquence serves to formulate a quarrel by ostensibly resolving it. This example reveals that there is a conflict between empirical quarrel and articulated spoken resolution. This leads the essay to explore the way in which diplomacy works, whereby we establish the pretence that there is peace between disputatious positions through the power of the logic of ‘but’, thus: ‘I agree with you, but …’. Finally, this is extended to a consideration of the limits of and/or on free speech: ‘I defend free speech, but …’, where the ‘but’ is a gesture in which the defence of free speech is modified to the point of being obliterated.

PERSECUTION AND THE ART OF FREEDOM: ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE ON THE IMPORTANCE OF FREE PRESS AND FREE SPEECH IN DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY

2020 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 190-208
Author(s):  
Khalil M. Habib
Keyword(s):  
Free Speech ◽  
Freedom Of Speech ◽  
Freedom Of The Press ◽  
Alexis De Tocqueville ◽  
Free Society ◽  
Free Press ◽  
Constituent Element ◽  
The Press ◽  
The Right ◽  
Shed Light

AbstractAccording to Tocqueville, the freedom of the press, which he treats as an extension of the freedom of speech, is a primary constituent element of liberty. Tocqueville treats the freedom of the press in relation to and as an extension of the right to assemble and govern one’s own affairs, both of which he argues are essential to preserving liberty in a free society. Although scholars acknowledge the importance of civil associations to liberty in Tocqueville’s political thought, they routinely ignore the importance he places on the freedom of the press and speech. His reflections on the importance of the free press and speech may help to shed light on the dangers of recent attempts to censor the press and speech.

scholarly journals Scholarship Suppression: Theoretical Perspectives and Emerging Trends

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sean Stevens ◽  
Lee Jussim ◽  
Nathan Honeycutt
Keyword(s):  
Free Speech ◽  
Real World ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Freedom Of Speech ◽  
Sociological Analysis ◽  
The Past ◽  
Academic Scholarship ◽  
Theoretical Perspectives ◽  
Emerging Trends ◽  
Free Speech Rights

This paper explores the suppression of ideas within academic scholarship by academics, either by self-suppression or because of the efforts of other academics. Legal, moral, and social issues distinguishing freedom of speech, freedom of inquiry, and academic freedom are reviewed. How these freedoms and protections can come into tension is then explored by a sociological analysis of denunciation mobs who exercise their legal free speech rights to call for punishing scholars who express ideas they disapprove of and condemn. When successful, these efforts, which constitute legally protected speech, will suppress certain ideas. Real-world examples over the past five years of academics who have been sanctioned or terminated for scholarship targeted by a denunciation mob are then explored.

scholarly journals Factors that Influence Freedom of Speech and Self-censorship in Mass Media in Contemporary Russia

2015 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 110-120
Author(s):  
Oksana Olshevskaya
Keyword(s):  
Mass Media ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
Political Influence ◽  
Freedom Of Speech ◽  
Media Freedom ◽  
Negative Experience ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Mass Media ◽  
The Government ◽  
In The Beginning

An attempt to define the degree of media freedom in contemporary Russia leads to contradiction between the declaration of the mass media freedom provided by the Constitution of the Russian Federation and the Soviet Union heritage of unequivocal control of the press by the government, described by Siebert et al. (1984) as the Soviet-Communist Press Theory. The reason for this ambiguity could be explained by the great deal of different factors that exert an influence on the journalism, such as features of mass media legislation, governmental control of the media, the diversity of media ownership, sources of media incomes, and traditions of censorship in Russia.  The current development of the media legislation in Russia shows no improvement regarding the freedom of speech. In the beginning of the third presidential term in 2012, Vladimir Putin has signed several laws that reduced the freedom of speech through the limitation of public assembly, criminalization of defamation in the mass media, and intensification of governmental censorship on the internet. On the other hand, the contemporary press freedom that appeared in conditions of the new market economy in the beginning of the 1990s has brought discredit as to the conception of an exclusively positive impact of unconditional freedom on the mass media since the newspapers, television and radio channels were controlled by several powerful oligarchs who used the owned mass media to spread and support their political influence. However, after the authorities’ reference in the 2000s the balance was not regained. As a result, the majority of the media outlets in Russia became co-owned or fully controlled by the government. Another crucial aspect of the mass media freedom as the cultural phenomenon should be kept in mind: seven decades of severe censorship could not be erased from the journalism professional community’s memory in several years. The negative experience of predecessors transforms censorship into self-censorship in modern Russia.

Where to limit the freedom of speech? Analysis in the context of the First Amendment to the US Constitution and the fighting words doctrine

2021 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 239-256
Author(s):  
Karolina Palka
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
First Amendment ◽  
Free Speech ◽  
Freedom Of Speech ◽  
The United States ◽  
National Socialist ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Constitution ◽  
Socialist Party Of America ◽  
The Right

This article is about the limits of the right to free speech. The first section provides a brief introduction to this topic, primarily in the context of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The second section describes the case of Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, which was fundamental to the topic of this paper because the United States Supreme Court created the so-called "fighting words" doctrine based on it. In the next two sections, two court cases are presented that perfectly demonstrate the limits of the right to free speech in the United States: Snyder v. Phelps and Village of Skokie v. National Socialist Party of America. The fifth part shows the right to freedom of speech in the context of Polish civil, criminal, and constitutional law, as well as acts of international law binding on Poland. The last part is a short summary.

Text and Republican Government

2021 ◽  
pp. 57-82
Author(s):  
George Thomas
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Free Speech ◽  
Freedom Of Speech ◽  
Religious Liberty ◽  
Republican Government ◽  
New Republic ◽  
Constitutional Meaning ◽  
Constitutional Republic

Early conflicts over religious liberty and freedom of speech reveal that while we can agree on the Constitution’s text, we can profoundly disagree over the unwritten ideas we think the text represents. Debates about religion and free speech point to deeper unwritten principles that are at the very heart of America’s constitutional republic. The first debate deals with the prohibition on religious tests for office in Article VI. The second speaks to freedom of speech and press. In these early debates about religious liberty and freedom of speech, the antagonists agreed on the wording of constitutional text; they disagreed profoundly on the principles and political theory that underlie it in their understanding of America’s new republic. These early arguments reveal the importance of constructing constitutional meaning from the unwritten ideas that underlie the constitutional text.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document