This is a revisionist history of press censorship in the rapidly expanding print culture of the sixteenth century. Professor Clegg establishes the nature and source of the controls, and evaluates their means and effectiveness. The state wanted to control the burgeoning press, but there were difficulties in practice because of the competing and often contradictory interests of the Crown, the Church, and the printing trade. By considering the literary and bibliographical evidence of books actually censored and by placing them in the literary, religious, economic and political culture of the time, Clegg concludes that press control was not a routine nor a consistent mechanism but an individual response to particular texts that the state perceived as dangerous. This will be the standard reference work on Elizabethan press censorship, and is also a history of the Elizabethan state's principal crises.

Journalist Allum Bokhari has spent four years investigating the tech giants that dominate the Internet: Google, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter. He has discovered a dark plot to seize control of the flow of information, and utilize that power to its full extent-to censor, manipulate, and ultimately sway the outcome of democratic elections. His network of whistleblowers inside Google, Facebook and other companies explain how the tech giants now see themselves as "good censors," benevolent commissars controlling the information we receive to "protect" us from "dangerous" speech. They reveal secret methods to covertly manipulate online information without us ever being aware of it, explaining how tech companies can use big data to target undecided voters. They lift the lid on a plot four years in the making-a plot to use the power of technology to stop Donald Trump's re-election.

In this edited collection, contributors analyze how the media is navigating Africa's most populous nation, Nigeria, and its mediated democracy. Despite its constitutional role, recognizable as the fourth estate of the realm, the Nigerian media has a history of confronting daunting challenges headlong. This book captures an array of the challenges faced, from British colonialism and military rule to democratic dispensation. Ordinarily, democracy is purposefully streamlined to elevate freedom of expression to an inalienable right and a necessary corollary of democracy. Yet, media freedom in Nigeria has been tortuous and nebulous, and there is a paradoxical difference in how the state relies on the media for partnership while also obstructing accountable journalism that would hold the state and the media itself accountable. The editors provide a poignant outlook of the onerous interactions and dialectics of media and democracy, and the cascading state power. Contributors argue for open democratic deliberations, civic space, and freedom of the press, all rooted in public good. Scholars of journalism, political communication, media studies, and African studies will find this book of particular interest.

Examining a phenomenon that is sweeping the country, Cancel This Book shines the spotlight on the suppression of open and candid debate. The public shaming of individuals for actual or perceived offenses, often against emerging notions of proper racial and gender norms and relations, has become commonplace. In a number of cases, the shaming is accompanied by calls for the offending individuals to lose their jobs, positions, or other status. Frequently, those targeted for "cancellation" simply do not know the latest, ever-changing norms (often related to language) that they are accused of transgressing-or they have honest questions about issues that have been deemed off-limits for debate and discussion. Cancel This Book offers a unique perspective from Dan Kovalik, a progressive author who supports the ongoing movements for racial and gender equality and justice, but who is concerned about the prevalence of "cancelling" people, and especially of people who are well-intentioned and who are themselves allied with these movements. While many progressives believe that "cancelling" others is a form of activism and holding others accountable, Cancel This Book argues that "cancellation" is oftentimes counter-productive and destructive of the very values which the "cancellers" claim to support. And indeed, we now see instances in the workplace where employers are using this spirt of "cancellation" to pit employees against each other, to exert more control over the workforce and to undermine worker and labor solidarity. Kovalik observes that many progressives are quietly opposed to this "Cancel Culture" and to many instances of "cancellation" they witness, but they are afraid to air these concerns publicly lest they themselves be "cancelled." The result is the suppression of open debate about important issues involving racial and gender matters, and even issues related to how to best confront the current COVID-19 pandemic. While people speak in whispers about their true feelings about such issues, critical debate and discussion is avoided, resentments build, and the movement for justice and equality is ultimately disserved.

Media Dictatorship: How Schools and Educators Can Defend Freedom of Speech outlines how the American media amasses enormous power and uses it to control every aspect of the people's lives-including schools, elections, science, and freedom of thought. Even churches, supposedly answerable to God only, are now being influenced and controlled by media. This book discusses the devastating consequences of such control on democracy and our civilization, and then offers suggestions on what can be done to identify media propaganda and defend freedom of speech. The school system has always been the first line of defense for patriotism and democracy. It is important for teachers to understand the consequences of a powerful media that does not tolerate diversity of thought. This book will encourage teachers to cultivate independence of thought among students. School administrators, too, have a responsibility to ensure that school campuses are sanctuaries of freedom of thought where leaders of tomorrow are taught to be tolerant of opposing views. In the larger public, outside the school campus, Media Dictatorship will spur a robust debate about the kind of media that can help nurture our democracy and civilization.

Media Dictatorship: How Schools and Educators Can Defend Freedom of Speech outlines how the American media amasses enormous power and uses it to control every aspect of the people's lives-including schools, elections, science, and freedom of thought. Even churches, supposedly answerable to God only, are now being influenced and controlled by media. This book discusses the devastating consequences of such control on democracy and our civilization, and then offers suggestions on what can be done to identify media propaganda and defend freedom of speech. The school system has always been the first line of defense for patriotism and democracy. It is important for teachers to understand the consequences of a powerful media that does not tolerate diversity of thought. This book will encourage teachers to cultivate independence of thought among students. School administrators, too, have a responsibility to ensure that school campuses are sanctuaries of freedom of thought where leaders of tomorrow are taught to be tolerant of opposing views. In the larger public, outside the school campus, Media Dictatorship will spur a robust debate about the kind of media that can help nurture our democracy and civilization.

Traditionally, the university or college is thought to be the ultimate location for the discovery and sharing of knowledge. After all, on these campuses are some of the great minds across all fields, as well as students who are not only eager to learn, but who often contribute to our shared wisdom. For those ideals to be achieved, however, ideas require access to some kind of virtual marketplace from which people can sample and consider them, discuss and debate them. Restricting the expression of those ideas for whatever reason is the enemy of not only this process, but also of knowledge discovery. Speech freedom on our college and university campuses, like everywhere else, is fragile. There are those who wish to suppress it, more often than not when the words express ideas, opinions, and even facts that conflict with their beliefs. Why is this effort, so completely at odds with the foundational values of this country, made? This topic explored in Speech Freedom on Campus: Past, Present and Future is multi-layered, and its analysis is best accomplished through multiple perspectives. Joseph Russomanno's edited collection does precisely that, utilizing 10 different scholars to examine various aspects and issues related to speech freedom on campus.

Requests for the removal, relocation, and restriction of books-also known as challenges-occur with some frequency in the United States. Book Banning in 21st-Century American Libraries, based on thirteen contemporary book challenge cases in schools and public libraries across the United States argues that understanding contemporary reading practices, especially interpretive strategies, is vital to understanding why people attempt to censor books in schools and public libraries. Previous research on censorship tends to focus on legal frameworks centered on Supreme Court cases, historical case studies, and bibliographies of texts that are targeted for removal or relocation and is often concerned with how censorship occurs. The current project, on the other hand, is focused on the why of censorship and posits that many censorship behaviors and practices, such as challenging books, are intimately tied to the how one understands the practice of reading and its effects on character development and behavior. It discusses reading as a social practice that has changed over time and encompasses different physical modalities and interpretive strategies. In order to understand why people challenge books, it presents a model of how the practice of reading is understood by challengers including "what it means" to read a text, and especially how one constructs the idea of "appropriate" reading materials. The book is based on three different kinds sources. The first consists of documents including requests for reconsideration and letters, obtained via Freedom of Information Act requests to governing bodies, produced in the course of challenge cases. Recordings of book challenge public hearings constitute the second source of data. Finally, the third source of data is interviews with challengers themselves. The book offers a model of the reading practices of challengers. It demonstrates that challengers are particularly influenced by what might be called a literal "common sense" orientation to text wherein there is little room for polysemic interpretation (multiple meanings for text). That is, the meaning of texts is always clear and there is only one avenue for interpretation. This common sense interpretive strategy is coupled with what Cathy Davidson calls "undisciplined imagination" wherein the reader is unable to maintain distance between the events in a text and his or her own response. These reading practices broaden our understanding of why people attempt to censor books in public institutions.

Compiled as a tool for re-educating the population of the three western zones of Occupation, this catalog lists 395 features, feature-length documentaries, and short films that were forbidden for public exhibition. The Zonal Film Archives originally held some 3200 feature titles and 2500 short titles. After viewing, those found to be harmless were returned to their owners, leaving the forbidden films documented in this catalog.

Each film entry gives credits (year, production, director, cast) together with an evaluation of the content. The films are listed in two sections: first, feature/feature-length documentaries and, second, shorts. They are further subdivided according to character and purpose (anti-American propaganda, or Nazi architectural propaganda, for example). There is a complete index of film titles and a list of all films produced in Germany between 1933 and 1945 by the Propaganda Ministry. An extensive introduction by noted historian K. R. M. Short places the work and a selection of related documents in full historical perspective. This catalog is a pivotal document for understanding the policies used to reconstruct and re-educate Germany between 1945 and 1951. As such it is invaluable to historians of Nazi and post-war Germany.

In Media and Law: Between Free Speech and Censorship, Mathieu Deflem and Derek M.D Silva have gathered an interdisciplinary team of leading experts to make a valuable contribution to the existing literature. This volume explores free speech and the control thereof from both a political as well as cultural lens. These topics have once again moved center stage in scholarly as well as popular discussions on what must, should, and should not be said in the public sphere of ideas, opinions, and tastes. In a world of alternative facts, fake news, gender politics, company self-censorship, edited art, hate speech, and career-ending tweets, the chapters in this volume make a timely contribution.

This study traces the way in which the librarian as the guardian of the freedom to read came to replace the librarian as moral censor. This shift in ideology is traced against a backdrop of major social and literary changes. Within this context, censorship is treated as part of a broader professional ideology of book selection. Geller treats that ideology in terms of three constant dilemmas of choice: populism vs. elitism, neutrality vs. advocacy, and freedom vs. censorship. By exploring the ways in which librarians as public servants have defined their selection policies in terms of the public interest, she sheds new light on the complex historical background and shifting social values that underlie contemporary policy alternatives.

Examining the various boundaries of American artistic tolerance, chapters address the societal and legal responses to rock and rap music. Artistic expression has historically clashed with mainstream views, resulting in apprehension acted upon internally and externally, especially when expression is aimed toward children or young adults. This work studies the mass media content and programming in network television, "Rolling Stone" magazine, and the "New York Times" reviews and spot news concerning rock and rap music. The National Endowment for the Arts, the FCC, and the music industry's internal responses to parents and adults are discussed as well. Inhibitions and censoring, it is argued, stem from adult concerns for a healthy functioning society and from anxiety about the impact of sexual explicitness and uncontrolled behavioral expression on adolescents. This work attempts to explain why societal intolerance has a pattern of limiting the lyrics and sounds of rock and rap music.

Uniquely combining both societal and legal viewpoints on censorship of America's popular music culture, these essays address issues of concern to various scholars including those studying mass media, censorship, and American popular culture. Legal appendices are included as useful references, such as the National Endowments for the Arts Obscenity and Rejections Sections.

The horror genre has endured a long and controversial success within popular culture. Fraught with accusations pertaining to its alleged ability to harm and corrupt young people and indeed society as a whole, the genre is constantly under pressure to suppress that which has made it so popular to begin with - its ability to frighten and generate discussion about society's darker side. Recognising the circularity of patterns in each generational manifestation of horror censorship, The Myth of Harm draws upon cases such as the Slenderman stabbing and the James Bulger murder amongst many others in order to explore the manner in which horror has been repeatedly cast as a harmful influence upon children at the expense of scrutinising other more complex social issues. Focusing on five major controversies beginning in the 1930's Golden Age of Horror Cinema and ending on a more contemporary note with Cyber-Gothic horror - this book identifies and considers the various myths and false hoods surrounding the genre of horror and question the very motivation behind the proliferation and dissemination of these myths as scapegoats for political and social issues, platforms for "moral entrepreneurs" and tools of hyperbolae for the news industry.

When it first appeared in 1979, the Williams Report on Obscenity and Film Censorship provoked strong reactions. The practical issues and political principles examined are of continuing interest and remain a crucial point of reference for discussions on obscenity and censorship. Presented in a fresh series livery for the twenty-first century, and with a specially commissioned preface written by Onora O'Neill, illuminating its continuing importance and relevance to philosophical enquiry, this abridged edition of Bernard Williams's Report presents all the main findings and arguments of the full report, central to which is the application of Mill's 'harm principle' and the conclusion that restrictions are out of place where no harm can be reasonably thought to be done.

This book explores censorship, particularly film and video censorship, in Japan in modern times. It shows how most censorship has been the film and video industry exercising self-censorship and how this system has been problematic in that it has allowed dominant players in the industry to impose their own standards and exclude independent filmmakers. It outlines notable obscenity cases and discusses how industry self-censorship bodies have been undermined both by industry outsiders setting up their own alternative regimes and by the industry self-censorship bodies themselves being prosecuted for obscenity. The book also examines the conflict between the obscenity law, introduced in Meiji times when Japan was importing Western models, and the freedom of speech law, which was put in place by the US occupation administration after World War II. The book concludes by assessing the current state of censorship in Japan and likely future developments.

Traditionally, the university or college is thought to be the ultimate location for the discovery and sharing of knowledge. After all, on these campuses are some of the great minds across all fields, as well as students who are not only eager to learn, but who often contribute to our shared wisdom. For those ideals to be achieved, however, ideas require access to some kind of virtual marketplace from which people can sample and consider them, discuss and debate them. Restricting the expression of those ideas for whatever reason is the enemy of not only this process, but also of knowledge discovery. Speech freedom on our college and university campuses, like everywhere else, is fragile. There are those who wish to suppress it, more often than not when the words express ideas, opinions, and even facts that conflict with their beliefs. Why does an effort so completely at odds with the foundational values of this country happen? This topic explored in Speech Freedom on Campus: Past, Present and Future is multi-layered, and its analysis is best accomplished through multiple perspectives. Joseph Russomanno's edited collection does precisely that, utilizing 10 different scholars to examine various aspects and issues related to speech freedom on campus.

The book presents an important and well known but so far not described episode in the history of banned books in the communist Poland - the activity of the so-called Tatra climbers. They were students and scholars from Warsaw, who initiated a risky cooperation with the centre of Polish political emigration in Paris - Kultura monthly. Inspired by the Prague Spring they tried to develop cooperation between the students from Eastern Bloc countries, smuggled books through the Polish-Slovak border, and gathered texts critical about communist rulers. After a few months, their activity was stopped by the Polish political police. The monograph shows the circumstances and motivations behind this dangerous activity of young people, traces the police investigation against them, and describes the mock trial in 1970.

On the lapse of the Licensing Act in 1695, Thomas Macaulay wrote in his History of England, 'English literature was emancipated, and emancipated for ever, from the control of the government'. It's certainly true that the system of prior restraint enshrined in this Restoration measure was now at an end, at least for print. Yet the same cannot be said of government control, which came to operate instead by means of post-publication retribution, not pre-publication licensing, notably for the common-law offence of seditious libel. For many of the authors affected, from Defoe to Cobbett, this new regime was a greater constraint on expression than the old, not least for its alarming unpredictability, and for the spectacular punishment-the pillory-that was sometimes entailed. Yet we may also see the constraint as an energizing force. Throughout the eighteenth century and into the Romantic period, writers developed and refined ingenious techniques for communicating dissident or otherwise contentious meanings while rendering the meanings deniable. As a work of both history and criticism, this book traces the rise and fall of seditious libel prosecution, and with it the theatre of the pillory, while arguing that the period's characteristic forms of literary complexity-ambiguity, ellipsis, indirection, irony-may be traced to the persistence of censorship in the post-licensing world. The argument proceeds through case studies of major poets and prose writers including Dryden, Defoe, Pope, Fielding, Johnson, and Southey, and also calls attention to numerous little-known satires and libels across the extended period.

Free speech has been a historically volatile issue in higher education. In recent years, however, there has been a surge of progressive censorship on campus. This wave of censorship has been characterized by the explosive growth of such policies as "trigger warnings" for course materials; "safe spaces" where students are protected from speech they consider harmful or distressing; "micro-aggression" policies that often strongly discourage the use of words that might offend sensitive individuals; new "bias-reporting" programs that consist of different degrees of campus surveillance; the "dis-invitation" of a growing list of speakers, including many in the mainstream of American politics and values; and the prominent "shouting down" or disruption of speakers deemed inconsistent with progressive ideology. Not to be outdone, external forces on the right are now engaging in social media bullying of speakers and teachers whose views upset them. The essays in this collection, written by prominent philosophers, political scientists, sociologists, and legal scholars, examine the issues at the forefront of the crisis of free speech in higher education. The contributors address the broader historical, cultural, legal, and normative contexts of the current crisis, and take care to analyze the role of "due process" in protecting academic freedom and individuals accused of misconduct. Additionally, the volume is unique in that it advances practical remedies to campus censorship, as the editors and many of the contributors have participated in movements to remedy limitations on free speech and open inquiry. The Value and Limits of Academic Speech will educate academic professionals and informed citizens about the phenomenon of progressive censorship and its implications for higher education and the republic.

Captivated at a young age by Russia, Marianna Tax Choldin immersed herself as a student at the University of Chicago in that country's language and culture. In her book she describes the tension between her strong commitment to freedom of expression and her growing understanding of Russian and Soviet censorship. Fluent in Russian, she travels widely in post-Soviet Russia, speaking with hundreds of Russians about their own censorship history. She writes of the close friendships she formed in Russia, and reflects on her Jewish roots in the country her family had left behind 100 years earlier.

"Better Left Unsaid" is in the unseemly position of defending censorship from the central allegations that are traditionally leveled against it. Taking two genres generally presumed to have been stymied by the censor's knife--the Victorian novel and classical Hollywood film--this book reveals the varied ways in which censorship, for all its blustery self-righteousness, can actually be good for sex, politics, feminism, and art.
As much as Victorianism is equated with such cultural impulses as repression and prudery, few scholars have explored the Victorian novel as a "censored" commodity--thanks, in large part, to the indirectness and intangibility of England's literary censorship process. This indirection stands in sharp contrast to the explicit, detailed formality of Hollywood's infamous Production Code of 1930. In comparing these two versions of censorship, Nora Gilbert explores the paradoxical effects of prohibitive practices. Rather than being ruined by censorship, Victorian novels and Hays Code films were stirred and stimulated by the very forces meant to restrain them.

Although nudity is something that everyone has experience with, public nudity is still largely considered taboo. Public Nudity and the Rhetoric of the Body examines instances of public nudity where sexuality is at the forefront of public body display. It presents a range of case studies: the legal aspects of sexualized public nudity as it relates to communication theory and the First Amendment; the controversies surrounding the work of photographer Jock Sturges; the public performance art of Milo Moire; the topless protests of FEMEN; the social media activism of Aliaa Magda Elmahdy; the ritualized flashing during Mardi Gras in New Orleans; and the sexual displays of Folsom Street Fair, the largest leather pride festival. Taken together, these cases teach much about identity, self-determination, and sexuality, and illustrate the complicated rhetorical nature of the human body in the public sphere.

States increasingly delegate regulatory and police functions to Internet intermediaries. The delegation is achieved by providing an incentive in the form of conditional liability exemptions. In the EU, the exemptions enshrined in the E-Commerce Directive effectively require intermediaries to police online content if they wish to maintain immunity regarding third party content. Such an approach results in delegated private enforcement that may lead to interference with the right to freedom of expression. Involving intermediaries in content regulation may be inevitable. The legal framework, on which it is based, however, should come equipped with safeguards that ensure effective protection of the right to freedom of expression.This book analyses the positive obligation of the European Union to introduce safeguards for freedom of expression when delegating the realisation of public policy objectives to Internet intermediaries.It also identifies and describes the safeguards that should be implemented in order to better protect freedom of expression.In a time when these issues are of particular relevance, Intermediary liability and freedom of expression in the EU provides the reader with a broader perspective on the problem of delegated regulation of expression on theInternet. It also provides the reader with up-to-date information on the discussions in the EU.

A commitment to free speech is a fundamental precept of all liberal democracies. However, democracies can differ significantly when addressing the constitutionality of laws regulating certain kinds of speech. In the United States, for instance, the commitment to free speech under the First Amendment has been held by the Supreme Court to protect the public expression of the most noxious racist ideology and hence to render unconstitutional even narrow restrictions on hate speech. In contrast, governments have been accorded considerable leeway to restrict racist and other extreme expression in almost every other democracy, including Canada, the United Kingdom, and other European countries. This book considers the legal responses of various liberal democracies towards hate speech and other forms of extreme expression, and examines the following questions:
What accounts for the marked differences in attitude towards the constitutionality of hate speech regulation?
Does hate speech regulation violate the core free speech principle constitutive of democracy?
Has the traditional US position on extreme expression justifiably not found favor elsewhere?
Do values such as the commitment to equality or dignity legitimately override the right to free speech in some circumstances?
With contributions from experts in a range of disciplines, this book offers an in-depth examination of the tensions that arise between democracy's promises.
Readership Academics, scholars, and advanced students of Human Rights; Comparative Human Rights; Freedom of Information & Freedom of Speech; Media, Information, & Communication Industries; Censorship; Extreme Speech & Hate Speech

Full text online version at www.nyupress.org/netwars.

Who will rule cyberspace? And why should people care? Recently stories have appeared in a variety of news media, from the sensational to the staid, that portray the Internet as full of pornography, pedophilia, recipes for making bombs, lewd and lawless behavior, and copyright violators. And, for politicians eager for votes, or to people who have never strolled the electronic byways, regulating the Net seems as logical and sensible as making your kids wear seat belts. Forget freedom of speech: children can read this stuff.

From the point of view of those on the Net, mass-media's representation of pornography on the Internet grossly overestimates the amount that is actually available, and these stories are based on studies that are at best flawed and at worst fraudulent. To netizens, the panic over the electronic availability of bomb-making recipes and other potentially dangerous material is groundless: the same material is readily available in public libraries. Out on the Net, it seems outrageous that people who have never really experienced it are in a position to regulate it.

How then, should the lines be drawn in the grey area between cyberspace and the physical world? In net.wars, Wendy Grossman, a journalist who has covered the Net since 1992 for major publications such as "Wired, The Guardian," and "The Telegraph," assesses the battles that will define the future of this new venue. From the Church of Scientology's raids on Net users to netizens attempts to overthrow both the Communications Decency Act and the restrictions on the export of strong encryption, net.wars explains the issues and the background behind the headlines. Among the issues covered are net scams, class divisions on the net, privacy issues, the Communications Decency Act, women online, pornography, hackers and the computer underground, net criminals and sociopaths, and more.