Freedom of expression on disturbing matters of society, history, and governance is becoming ever more contested in Canada. The idea that official meanings and histories can legally substitute for publicly constructed ones - for fear of what an uncensored public might themselves construct - is gaining widespread acceptance. Public invocation of hate propaganda law, its language, and its moral authority in otherwise ordinary discursive contexts, has been crucial to, and symbolic of, this trend. Democracy Off Balance offers an unsettling analysis of hate censorship and hate censors as a complex paradox of modern democratic discourse. Stefan Braun argues against the supposed public interest served by the hate speech laws and dissects the paradoxical forces - the politically self-contradictory thinking and the socially self-defeating assumptions - that drive hate censorship in Canada today. Braun draws on censors' own terms of social and political reference to show how they undermine their own causes with hate censorship and uncovers how hate speech law subtly impacts far beyond its strict legal confines to condition and corrode public discourse. He brings together the debate and the debaters in a multidimensional approach that challenges traditional ways of seeing the legal boundaries of freedom of expression. Democracy Off Balance is a timely and absorbing exploration of a highly controversial topic.

In this book, Juhani Rudanko sheds important new light on James Madison's contributions to the debates on freedom of speech, during the formative period of 1789 to 1801 in the United States. When Madison proposed amendments that eventually formed the core of the Bill of Rights (June 8, 1789), the reaction from the Federalist party majority was initially hostile. Rudanko examines Madison's patterns of argumentation in eventually persuading the House of Representatives to proceed with consideration of the Bill of Rights. The book also presents new insights on key debates of the Sedition Act, examining initial Federalist arguments when the Act was approved, July 1798, and identifies changes in those arguments soon afterwards.

What did "freedom of the press" really mean to the framers of the First Amendment and their contemporaries? This masterful book by a Pulitzer Prize winning constitutional historian answers that question. In Emergence of a Free Press (a greatly revised and enlarged edition of his landmark Legacy of Suppression), Leonard W. Levy argues that the First Amendment was not designed to be the bulwark of a free press that many thought, nor had the amendment's framers intended to overturn the common law of seditious libel that was the principal means of stifling political dissent. Yet he notes how robust and rambunctious the early press was, and he takes that paradox into account in tracing the succession of cases and reforms that figured in the genesis of a free press. Mr. Levy's brilliant account offers a new generation of readers a penetrating look into the origins of one of America's most cherished freedoms."

Webster's New World American Words of Freedom features the complete text of and expert commentary on the documents that define democracy and frame freedom -- including the Declaration of Independence, The U.S. Constitution, The Bill of Rights and subsequent constitutional amendments. The helpful glossary of terms throughout the book enables you to understand and appreciate every word. Plus, you'll also find the text of and commentary on President George W. Bush's emotionally charged September 20, 2001 speech!

In this book, Richard Moon puts forward an account of freedom of expression that emphasizes its social character. Such freedom does not simply protect individual liberty from state interference; it also protects the individual's freedom to communicate with others. It is the right of the individual to communicate: an activity that is deeply social in character, and that involves socially created languages and the use of community resources, like parks, streets, and broadcast stations. Moon argues that recognition of the social dynamic of communication is critical to understanding the potential value and harm of language and to addressing questions about the scope and limits on one's rights to freedom of expression.

Moon examines the tension between the demands for freedom of expression and the structure of constitutional adjudication in the Canadian context. The book discusses many of the standard freedom of expression issues, such as the regulation of advertising, election spending ceilings, the restriction of hate promotion and pornography, state compelled expression, freedom of the press, access to state and private property and state support for expression. It examines several important Supreme Court of Canada decisions including Irwin Toy, Dolphin Delivery, RJR Macdonald, Keegstra and Butler.

In a free society where it often seems nothing is sacred, many feel that one thing at least should be: that despite constitutional guarantees of free speech, it should be illegal to desecrate the American flag. For most Americans, no symbol is more charged with emotion, and incidents of its abuse have led many to declare that freedom of expression has its limits.

When Gregory Lee Johnson burned a flag as part of a political protest, he was convicted for flag desecration under Texas law, but the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals reversed the conviction on First Amendment grounds and the Supreme Court confirmed that physically damaging the flag constituted symbolic-and protected-speech. Robert Justin Goldstein now examines this landmark case and the attendant controversy over whether protection of the flag conflicts with constitutional guarantees of free speech. He also explores the case's ramifications for future legal battles.

Goldstein, who has published widely on the flag desecration debate, offers a concise and updated account of the controversy for students and general readers. He traces the history of the flag protection movement from its nineteenth-century origins through the enactment of early state laws, and he examines modern incidents of flag desecration from the Vietnam era to the present.

At the heart of the book is the Johnson case and the political firestorm that it ignited. Goldstein examines the legal and philosophical issues surrounding the case through courtroom testimony, oral arguments, and interviews with Johnson, the lawyers (including former Whitewater prosecutor Kenneth Starr and the late famed "radical attorney" William Kunstler), and the judges who heard the many rounds of appeals. He then takes us inside the Supreme Court to analyze the justices' reasoning that government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds it offensive. Finally, he looks at reactions to the decision-including recent heated attempts to protect the flag through legislation or constitutional amendment.

Goldstein helps us better understand the human emotion and psychological drama that underlie abstract legal and constitutional issues and that fundamental rights sometimes are held by the courts to be superior to majority rule or popular emotion. By demonstrating how competing and often contradictory concepts can be embodied in the very same symbol, he helps us understand the fundamental meanings of democracy and patriotism.

An ideal supplement for any course with the goal to make free speech issues meaningful and relevant to young media professionals today.

Features of the text:

1. INTERACTIVE - it helps instructors engage students in meaningful discussions about current free speech issues. It presents situations, often taken from court cases, followed by questions that challenge students to clarify and justify their own beliefs about freedom of expression.
2. INTERNATIONAL - communicates how and why countries and governments, other than the United States, deal with free speech issues in different ways.
3. NEUTRAL- not a flag-waving catechism for the "American way". Asks difficult questions as to whether the freedoms many U. S. citizens take for granted are the best approach to some issues. It develops critical thinking skills.

David Rudenstine effectively captures the day-by-day drama of the Nixon administration's efforts in 1971 to prohibit the New York Times and the Washington Post from publishing the 7000-page, top-secret Pentagon Papers. Rudenstine originally shared the dominant historical view that the government's position fell far short of satisfying the heavy burden the law required if the courts were to permanently restrain publication. But after studying previously classified documents and interviewing key participants in the controversy, including Robert MacNamara, Clark Clifford, William Rehnquist, Katherine Graham, and Daniel Ellsberg, Rudenstine changed his mind.

As the world looked on in horror at the Paris terror attacks of January and November 2015, France found itself at the centre of a war that has split across nations and continents. The attacks set in motion a steady creep towards ever more repressive state surveillance, and have fuelled the resurgence of the far right across Europe and beyond, while leaving the left dangerously divided. These developments raise profound questions about a number of issues central to contemporary debates, including the nature of national identity, the limits to freedom of speech, and the role of both traditional and social media. After Charlie Hebdo brings together an international range of scholars to assess the social and political impact of the Paris attacks in Europe and beyond. Cutting through the hysteria that has characterised so much of the initial commentary, it seeks to place these events in their wider global context, untangling the complex symbolic web woven around 'Charlie Hebdo' to pose the fundamental question - how best to combat racism in our supposedly 'post-racial' age?

Tolerated in Britain for over 300 years-and ubiquitous throughout the world for much longer - visual satire gives offence in the quickest way and in its purest form. Cartoons have long since established themselves as a legitimate part of the general political discourse. As a cartoonist, it is Rowson's job to give offence. But the flip side of giving offence is, of course, giving comfort to the opponents or victims of the offended. In "Giving Offence", Rowson explains how and why cartoons work, why they matter and why the reactions of the offended are often an even blunter political weapon than the cartoons themselves. This book is in collaboration with "Index on Censorship".

BOOKS TO LOOK OUT FOR IN 2022, NEW STATESMAN & CITY AM Chosen as one of the Financial Time's Best Summer Books of 2022 Longlisted for the Moore Prize for Human Rights Writing 'Compelling, powerful and necessary.' Shoshana Zuboff, author of The Age of Surveillance Capitalism 'Fascinating' Guardian Without a moment's pause, we share our most intimate thoughts with trillion-dollar tech companies. Their algorithms categorize us and jump to troubling conclusions about who we are. They also shape our everyday thoughts, choices and actions - from who we date to whether we vote. But this is just the latest front in an age-old struggle. Part history and part manifesto, Freedom to Think explores how the powerful have always sought to influence how we think and what we buy. Connecting the dots from Galileo to Alexa, human rights lawyer Susie Alegre charts the history and fragility of our most important human right: freedom of thought. Filled with shocking case-studies across politics, criminal justice, and everyday life, this ground-breaking book shows how our mental freedom is under threat like never before. Bold and radical, Alegre argues that only by recasting our human rights for the digital age can we safeguard our future.

The principles of freedom of expression have been developed over centuries. How are they reserved and passed on? How can large internet gatekeepers be required to respect freedom of expression and to contribute actively to a diverse and plural marketplace of ideas? These are key issues for media regulation, and will remain so for the foreseeable decades. The book starts with the foundations of freedom of expression and freedom of the press, and then goes on to explore the general issues concerning the regulation of the internet as a specific medium. It then turns to analysing the legal issues relating to the three most important gatekeepers whose operations directly affect freedom of expression: ISPs, search engines and social media platforms. Finally it summarises the potential future regulatory and media policy directions. The book takes a comparative legal approach, focusing primarily on English and American regulations, case law and jurisprudential debates, but it also details the relevant international developments (Council of Europe, European Union) as well as the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights.

This groundbreaking two-volume set provides readers with the information they need to grasp new developments in the swiftly evolving field of media literacy. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) proclaimed media literacy a "fundamental human right." How fitting that there is finally a definitive handbook to help students and the general public alike become better informed, more critical consumers of mass media. In these A-Z volumes, readers can learn about methodologies and assessment strategies; get information about sectors, such as community media and media activism; and explore areas of study, such as journalism, advertising, and political communications. The rapid evolution of media systems, particularly digital media, is emphasized, and writings by notable media literacy scholars are included. In addition to providing a wide range of qualitative approaches to media literacy analysis, the handbook also offers a wealth of media literacy resources. These include lists of media literacy organizations and national media literacy programs, plus relevant books, websites, videos, and articles.

This issue of Index on Censorship magazine is available for purchase as an individual volume.From Russia to Burma to Mexico, writers are silenced for expressing their views. To mark fifty years of solidarity with imprisoned and persecuted writers around the world, English PEN and Index on Censorship are collaborating on this special issue, asking journalists, novelists, playwrights, poets and translators to assess what unique role writers can play in supporting their colleagues around the world. They look at the impact that imprisonment and persecution has on literature -- and ask what challenges writers continue to face today. Contributors include Margaret Atwood, Lydia Cacho and Maureen Freely.

Index on Censorship is an award-winning magazine, devoted to protecting and promoting free expression. International in outlook, outspoken in comment, Index on Censorship reports on free expression violations around the world, publishes banned writing and shines a light on vital free expression issues through original, challenging and intelligent commentary and analysis, publishing some of the world's finest writers. Each issue is available for purchase separately, as well as on subscription.

Winner 2008 Amnesty International Consumer Magazine of the Year About This Issue The internet has not only been a revolution for free speech - it's reinvented censorship. Cyber utopia has brought with it new forms of control - and it's not just authoritarian regimes that are limiting access to what we read and watch. Democracies are also curbing our right to information, whether in the name of child protection or copyright. Index on Censorship takes a close look at the new rules of the game, with contributions from bloggers, activists, journalists and experts around the world. About Index on Censorship From 2010 SAGE is proud to be the publisher of Index on Censorship, the award-winning magazine devoted to protecting and promoting free expression. International in outlook, outspoken in comment, Index reports on free expression violations around the world, publishes banned writing and shines a light on vital free expression issues through original, accessible and intelligent commentary and analysis, publishing some of the world's finest writers. Published four times a year (March, June, September, December), Index is available via annual subscription or to purchase on an issue-by-issue basis. Forthcoming 2010 issues: Free Speech and Music; Radio and the Promotion of Free Expression

Don't Stop the Music

Read about the songs they tried to ban, the musicians stopped for playing live, and the singers who are put on trial in the bumper Smashed Hits issue of Index.

What a Carve Up

Tyrannosaurus Rex and the Clash manager Peter Jenner on hidden censorship in the music biz.

Yalla

Cairo, Beirut, Amman: Musician Khyam Allami travel the middle east

Finding Bird

Jazz star Gilad Atzmon on Charlie Parker

Kurdish Blues

Kaya Genc on the singers they try to silence

My Life is Under Threat

Lapiro de Mbanga speaks to Index from his Prison Cell

Plus

Chaza Charafeddine's Unmissable Divine Comedy Exhibition

Index on Censorship is an award-winning magazine, devoted to protecting and promoting free expression. International in outlook, outspoken in comment, Index on Censorship reports on free expression violations around the world, publishes banned writing and shines a light on vital free expression issues through original, challenging and intelligent commentary and analysis, publishing some of the world's finest writers.

Forthcoming December 2010: Issue 39/4,

Writers in Prison

For subscription options visit: http: //ioc.sagepub.com

www.indexoncensorship.org: the place to turn for free up-to-the-minute free expression news and comment

Winner 2008 Amnesty International Consumer Magazine of the Year

The power and status of the press in America reached new heights after spectacular reporting triumphs in the segregated South, in Vietnam, and in Washington during the Watergate years. Then new technologies created instantaneous global reporting which left the government unable to control the flow of information to the nation. The press thus became a formidable rival in critical struggles to control what the people know and when they know it. But that was more power than the press could handle--and journalism crashed toward new lows in public esteem and public purpose. The dazzling new technologies, profit-driven owners, and celebrated editors, reporters, and broadcasters made it possible to bypass older values and standards of journalism. Journalists reveled in lusty pursuit after the power of politics, the profits of entertainment and trespass into privacy. Richard Reeves was there at the rise and at the fall, beginning as a small-town editor, becoming the chief political correspondent of the New York Times and then a best-selling author and award-winning documentary filmmaker. He tells the story of a tribe that lost its way. From the Pony Express to the Internet, he chronicles what happened to the press as America accelerated into uncertainty, arguing that to survive, the press must go back to doing what it was hired to do long ago: stand as outsiders watching government and politics on behalf of a free people busy with their own affairs.

How free is the speech of someone who can't be heard? Not very--and this, Owen Fiss suggests, is where the First Amendment comes in. In this book, a marvel of conciseness and eloquence, Fiss reframes the debate over free speech to reflect the First Amendment's role in ensuring public debate that is, in Justice William Brennan's words, truly "uninhibited, robust, and wide-open." Hate speech, pornography, campaign spending, funding for the arts: the heated, often overheated, struggle over these issues generally pits liberty, as embodied in the First Amendment, against equality, as in the Fourteenth. Fiss presents a democratic view of the First Amendment that transcends this opposition. If equal participation is a precondition of free and open public debate, then the First Amendment encompasses the values of both equality and liberty. By examining the silencing effects of speech--its power to overwhelm and intimidate the underfunded, underrepresented, or disadvantaged voice--Fiss shows how restrictions on political expenditures, hate speech, and pornography can be defended in terms of the First Amendment, not despite it. Similarly, when the state requires the media to air voices of opposition, or funds art that presents controversial or challenging points of view, it is doing its constitutional part to protect democratic self-rule from the aggregations of private power that threaten it. Where most liberal accounts cast the state as the enemy of freedom and the First Amendment as a restraint, this one reminds us that the state can also be the friend of freedom, protecting and fostering speech that might otherwise die unheard, depriving our democracy of the full range and richness of its expression.

Art is continuously subjected to insidious forms of censorship. This may be by the Church to guard against moral degeneration, by the State to promote a specific political agenda or by the art market, to elevate one artist above another. Now, and in the last century, artwork that touches on ethnic, religious, sexual, national or institutional sensitivities is liable to be destroyed or hidden away, ignored or side-lined. Drawing from new research into historical and contemporary case-studies, Censoring Art: Silencing the Artwork provides diverse ways of understanding the purpose and mechanisms of art censorship across distinct geopolitical and cultural contexts from Iran, Japan, and Uzbekistan to Britain, Ireland, Canada, Macedonia, Soviet Russia, and Cyprus. Its contributions uncover the impact of this silent control of the production and exhibition of art and consider how censorship has affected art practice and public perceptions of artworks.

Over the past two decades, there have been a series of events that have brought into question the concept and practice of free expression. In this new book, Winston provides an account of the current state of freedom of expression in the western world. He analyses all the most pertinent cases of conflict during the last two decades - including the fatwa against Salman Rushdie, the incident of the Danish cartoons and offended celebrities - examining cultural, legal and journalistic aspects of each case. A Right to Offend offers us a deeper understanding of the increasingly threatening environment in which free speech operates and is defended, as well as how it informs and is central to journalism practice and media freedom more generally. It is important reading for all those interested in freedom of expression in the twenty-first century.

In his book "Human Rights: Group Defamation, Freedom of Expression and" "the Law of Nations," Thomas David Jones presents a discussion and analysis of the laws governing group defamation and speech inciteful of racial hatred in Great Britain, Canada, India, Nigeria, and the United States. Although there exists no federal group defamation law in the United States, a few state legislatures have promulgated group defamation statutes, while a cause of action for group defamation has been recognized as justiciable in the decision law of other states. Mr Jones describes his theory as constitutional minimalism because he does not advocate the legal proscription of all derogatory hate speech. Only the sub-category of hate speech that fulfills the standard elements of proof found in common law defamation claim will be prosecuted criminally by the federal government. The author further asserts that a carefully and narrowly drafted federal criminal group defamation statute will pass constitutional muster without creating a conflict with First Amendment rights.