Free Speech and Commercial Advertising

2021 ◽  
pp. 443-454
Author(s):  
Frederick Schauer
Keyword(s):  
Free Speech ◽  
Government Regulation ◽  
Relevant Literature ◽  
Freedom Of Speech ◽  
The United States ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Commercial Speech ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
Goods And Services ◽  
Commercial Advertising

This chapter studies the relationship between free speech and commercial advertising. In the contemporary world, a substantial percentage of the universe of public communication consists of advertising. Speech offering to sell goods and services, typically with inducements to purchase, and often including the price and other conditions of the proposed sale, is a ubiquitous part of modern life. An important question in the theory and practice of freedom of speech is the extent to which, if at all, such communications should be protected against government regulation. Given that the United States is something of a protective outlier on free speech questions generally, even when compared to other liberal industrialized democracies, it is not surprising that free speech protection for commercial advertising is more robust in American law than it is anywhere else in the world. But the question has arisen in many other countries that profess to take the freedom of speech seriously, and thus the chapter will deal with the question of free speech protection for commercial advertising of some sort and to some degree as a question with worldwide implications, and with both theoretical and doctrinal dimensions. It is common in much of the relevant literature to refer to the topic under discussion as ‘commercial speech’.

THE POLITICS OF FREE SPEECH

2004 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 23-47
Author(s):  
Scott D. Gerber
Keyword(s):  
Deliberative Democracy ◽  
Free Speech ◽  
Constitutional Law ◽  
Hate Speech ◽  
Freedom Of Speech ◽  
The United States ◽  
Commercial Speech ◽  
Free Theory ◽  
Legal Theorist ◽  
The U.S

Freedom of speech long has been regarded as one of the “preferred freedoms” in the United States: one of the freedoms the U.S. Supreme Court deems “implicit in the concept of ordered liberty.” However, what freedom of speech does—and should—mean is a highly charged question in American constitutional law. I will explore this question by examining how several prominent constitutional theorists have proposed particular approaches to free speech law in order to further their political objectives. I will examine the free speech theories of the nation's leading feminist legal theorist (regarding pornography), critical race theorists (regarding hate speech), libertarian (regarding commercial speech), and legal republican (regarding deliberative democracy). I also will discuss the principal criticisms of each of these theories, whether the courts have been influenced by any of them, and, in conclusion, whether it is possible to advance a nonpolitical (i.e., a purely law-based or value-free) theory of free speech.

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.

scholarly journals Economic Perspectives on Free Speech

2021 ◽  
pp. 117-136
Author(s):  
Daniel Hemel
Keyword(s):  
Free Speech ◽  
Law And Economics ◽  
Information Economics ◽  
Freedom Of Speech ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Marketplace Of Ideas ◽  
Goods And Services ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Economic Perspectives

This chapter explores the potential for economic analysis to illuminate freedom of speech. For early scholars of law and economics, the similarities and differences between the metaphorical marketplace for ideas and literal markets for goods and services were subjects of much attention. The chapter then argues that information economics has the potential to explain failures in the ‘marketplace of ideas’. Just as information asymmetry in the market for goods and services allows low quality goods and services to drive high quality goods and services out of the marketplace, there is reason to think that ‘bad speech’ will tend to drive out the ‘good’. For good information to compete in the market, readers and listeners must be able to tell the difference between good and bad information—an idea with particular resonance in the age of ‘fake news’, and with potential implications for the design of free-speech laws.

scholarly journals Elonis v. United States: The Doctrine of True Threats: Protecting Our Ever-Shrinking First Amendment Rights in the New Era of Communication

2015 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 197-223
Author(s):  
Mary Margaret Roark
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
First Amendment ◽  
Free Speech ◽  
Freedom Of Speech ◽  
The United States ◽  
New Era ◽  
The Public ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The U.S

The First Amendment protects one of our most precious rights as citizens of the United States—the freedom of speech. Such protection has withstood the test of time, even safeguarding speech that much of the population would find distasteful. There is one form of speech which cannot be protected: the true threat. However, the definition of what constitutes a "true threat" has expanded since its inception. In the new era of communication—where most users post first and edit later—the First Amendment protection we once possessed has been eroded as more and more speech is considered proscribable as a "true threat." In order to adequately protect both the public at large and our individual right to free speech, courts should analyze a speaker’s subjective intent before labeling speech a "true threat." Though many courts have adopted an objective, reasonable listener test, the U.S. Supreme Court now has the opportunity, in deciding Elonis v. United States, to take a monumental step in protecting the First Amendment right to free speech. By holding that the speaker’s subjective intent to threaten is necessary for a true threat conviction, the Court will restore the broad protection afforded by the First Amendment and repair years of erosion caused by an objective approach.

scholarly journals Filial Piety (xiao 孝) for the Contemporary and Global World

Asian Studies ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-114 ◽  
Author(s):  
Loreta POŠKAITĖ
Keyword(s):  
Filial Piety ◽  
Chinese Culture ◽  
The United States ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
Children And Parents ◽  
Family Ethics ◽  
Cultural Dialogue ◽  
Global World

The relationships between children and parents seem to be one of the most urgent issues in the contemporary world, spanning from the United States and European countries to East Asian societies, as a consequence of the transformation of traditional family ethics, values and institutions brought about by the processes of modernization and globalization. The present paper aims to reveal the ways and problems of the application of xiao 孝 (filial piety) ethics in the contemporary Western and Chinese societies, as reflected in the works by a number of famous Western Protestant missionaries, religious philosophers, sinologists and present-day Lithuanian Sinology students, and counterbalance their views with the insights of contemporary Chinese sociologists. The place of xiao in the contemporary inter-cultural dialogue will be discussed from the point of view of dialogue between religions, theory and practice, Western and Chinese culture, traditional and modern societies and values.  

THE ACADEMIC BETRAYAL OF FREE SPEECH

2004 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 48-80
Author(s):  
Daniel Jacobson
Keyword(s):  
Free Speech ◽  
Freedom Of Speech ◽  
The United States ◽  
Law Schools ◽  
Legal Scholar ◽  
Rich Variety ◽  
Classical Liberal ◽  
Stanley Fish ◽  
Initial Characterization

“ 'Free speech' is just the name we give to verbal behavior that serves the substantive agendas we wish to advance”—or so literary theorist and professor of law Stanley Fish has claimed. This cynical dictum is one of several skeptical challenges to freedom of speech that have been extremely influential in the American academy. I will follow the skeptics' lead by distinguishing between two broad styles of critique: the progressive and the postmodern. Fish's dictum, however, like many of the bluntest charges, belongs to neither class exclusively. As an initial characterization of the distinction between these critiques, progressive skepticism claims that freedom of speech is a bad thing, while postmodernist skepticism claims it to be conceptually impossible. Both forms of skepticism hold the classical liberal endorsement of free speech and condemnation of censorship to be both naive and reactionary. Skepticism about free speech flourishes at universities in the United States and is especially well represented among professors at the country's most prestigious law schools. As legal scholar Robert Post approvingly observes: “Liberated from traditional inhibitions against official suppression of speech, the left has mobilized to pursue a rich variety of political agendas.”

Norms, institutions and freedom of speech in the US, the UK and Australia

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Katharine Gelber
Keyword(s):  
National Security ◽  
Policy Change ◽  
Free Speech ◽  
Freedom Of Speech ◽  
The United States ◽  
Rule Based ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The Us ◽  
Level Institution ◽  
The Uk

Abstract While it has become accepted that norms can act in institution-like ways, a highly valued norm that has not been examined is free speech. Can free speech be conceptualised as acting in institution-like ways? If it can, what does this illuminate about processes of policy change? I analyse policy change between 2001 and 2011 in the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia, a period during which significant new limits were introduced on free speech in relation to national security. In addition to showing how free speech acted in institution-like ways, the analysis suggests three implications: norms can both act in institution-like ways and be subject to change in interaction with other institutions; a broad, cultural level institution can mask policy change at the narrow, rule-based level even where the latter contradicts the former; and complexity and variation in speech regulation can be understood as consequences of the to-be-expected variability in the institutionalisation of a norm.

Political Culture, Flag Use and Freedom of Speech

2011 ◽  
Vol 60 (1) ◽  
pp. 163-179 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katharine Gelber
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Political Culture ◽  
Free Speech ◽  
Freedom Of Speech ◽  
The United States ◽  
Controversial Issues ◽  
Political Expression ◽  
Turn On ◽  
National Flag

Flag use generates passionate debates that fundamentally turn on questions of the appropriate extent and limits of freedom of speech. The national flag is a natural and forceful medium with which to express one's views about a nation. Yet its use in this way also generates controversy and emotionally charged reactions. The purpose of this article is to assess attitudes in political culture towards flag use in the context of wider freedom of speech considerations. By analysing events in Australia, the United States and New Zealand, the article argues that public responses to flag use as a medium of political expression demonstrate a flawed understanding of the meaning, import and effect of freedom of speech and its limits. This has significant implications, exposing the extent of fragility of freedom of speech on controversial issues, and its persistence despite differences between jurisdictions in the manner and extent of free speech protection.

scholarly journals Ethical Principles on the Freedom of Speech and Expression in the Developed and Developing Countries

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Abdul Alim
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
First Amendment ◽  
Free Speech ◽  
Freedom Of Speech ◽  
The United States ◽  
United States Constitution ◽  
Bill Of Rights ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Constitution

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution is an essential part of the Bill of Rights. The amendment prohibits making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, obstructing the free exercise of religion, infringing on the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering peoples assembling rights in a peaceful manner or prohibiting the petitioning for a governmental remedy of grievances. The guarantees of this Bill of Rights were subject to the limitation imposed by the free speech and press provisions of the First Amendment to the US Constitution as interpreted and applied by the Supreme Court and other courts. The United States and India are the largest democratic country and almost have similar free speech provisions in their Constitutions. This Article is intended to present the free speech provisions of the American and Indian Constitution as a basic fundamental right of human being. It is also to be examined that what is the role of Supreme Court in interpreting the freedom of speech and expression provisions. The study also tries to incorporate the comparison between the looms of both countries as far as freedom of speech is disturbed.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document