Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- List of contributors
- Introduction
- 1 Liberal constraints on private power?: reflections on the origins and rationale of access regulation
- 2 Liberalism and free speech
- 3 Foundations and limits of freedom of the press
- 4 Why the state?
- 5 Practices of toleration
- 6 Access in a post–social responsibility age
- 7 Who decides?
- 8 Four criticisms of press ethics
- 9 Political communication systems and democratic values
- 10 Mass communications policy: where we are and where we should be going
- 11 Content regulation reconsidered
- 12 The rationale of public regulation of the media
- 13 The role of a free press in strengthening democracy
- Index
11 - Content regulation reconsidered
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- List of contributors
- Introduction
- 1 Liberal constraints on private power?: reflections on the origins and rationale of access regulation
- 2 Liberalism and free speech
- 3 Foundations and limits of freedom of the press
- 4 Why the state?
- 5 Practices of toleration
- 6 Access in a post–social responsibility age
- 7 Who decides?
- 8 Four criticisms of press ethics
- 9 Political communication systems and democratic values
- 10 Mass communications policy: where we are and where we should be going
- 11 Content regulation reconsidered
- 12 The rationale of public regulation of the media
- 13 The role of a free press in strengthening democracy
- Index
Summary
INTRODUCTION
For many years I have thought that there was an important and appealing fundamental truth behind Justice Thurgood Marshall's observation that “above all else, the First Amendment means that government has no power to restrict expression because of its message, its ideas, its subject matter, or its content.” As the years have gone by, however, this truth has come to seem more elusive, more limited, and less fundamental than it once did. What follows is an attempt to reexamine the impermissibility of content-based restrictions by regarding it as one element within a larger view of freedom of expression as a right.
The idea that there is something especially bad about government regulation of the content of expression, whether this takes the form of prohibiting some contents or requiring others, has obvious relevance to many questions about the regulation of mass media, ranging from restrictions on advertising of alcohol and tobacco products to the fairness doctrine and statutes mandating a right to reply to political editorials. I shall discuss some of these issues briefly, but I shall not be able to explore any of them in detail. My aim is, rather, to provide a general framework within which they can be discussed in a systematic way.
THE STRUCTURE OF RIGHTS
In my view, rights are constraints on discretion to act that we believe to be important means for avoiding morally unacceptable consequences.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Democracy and the Mass MediaA Collection of Essays, pp. 331 - 354Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1990
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