Commentators on the media in Southeast Asia either emphasise with optimism the prospect for new media to provide possibilities for greater democratic discourse, or else, less optimistically, focus on the continuing ability of governments to exercise tight and sophisticated control of the media. This book explores these issues with reference to Malaysia and Singapore. It analyses how journalists monitor governments and cover elections, discussing what difference journalism makes; it examines citizen journalism, and the constraints on it, often self-imposed constraints; and it assesses how governments control the media, including outlining the development and current application of legal restrictions.

This book is the first to outline the history of the tactic of 'no platforming' at British universities since the 1970s, looking at more than four decades of student protest against racist and fascist figures on campus. The tactic of 'no platforming' has been used at British universities and colleges since the National Union of Students adopted the policy in the mid-1970s. The author traces the origins of the tactic from the militant anti-fascism of the 1930s-1940s and looks at how it has developed since the 1970s, being applied to various targets over the last 40 years, including sexists, homophobes, right-wing politicians and Islamic fundamentalists. This book provides a historical intervention in the current debates over the alleged free speech 'crisis' perceived to be plaguing universities in Britain, as well as North America and Australasia. No Platform: A History of Anti-Fascism, Universities and the Limits of Free Speech is for academics and students, as well as the general reader, interested in modern British history, politics and higher education. Readers interested in contemporary debates over freedom of speech and academic freedom will also have much to discover in this book.

Free speech has positive dimensions of enablement and negative dimensions of non-restraint, both of which require protection for democracy to have substantial communicative legitimacy. In Democracy of Expression, Andrew Kenyon explores this need for sustained plural public speech linked with positive communicative freedom. Drawing on sources from media studies, human rights, political theory, free speech theory and case law, Kenyon shows how positive dimensions of free speech could be imagined and pursued. While recognising that democratic governments face challenges of public communication and free speech that cannot be easily solved, Kenyon argues that understanding the nature of these challenges (including the value of positive free speech) at least makes possible a democracy of expression in which society has a voice, formulates judgments, and makes effective claims of government. In this groundbreaking work, Kenyon not only reframes how we conceptualize free speech, but also provides a roadmap for reform.

Enacted in 1966, The Freedom of Information Act (or FOIA) was designed to promote oversight of governmental activities, under the notion that most users would be journalists. Today, however, FOIA is largely used for purposes other than fostering democratic accountability. Instead, most requesters are either individuals seeking their own files, businesses using FOIA as part of commercial enterprises, or others with idiosyncratic purposes like political opposition research. In this sweeping, empirical study, Margaret Kwoka documents how agencies have responded to the large volume of non-oversight requesters by creating new processes, systems, and specialists, which in turn has had a deleterious impact on journalists and the media. To address this problem, Kwoka proposes a series of structural solutions aimed at shrinking FOIA to re-center its oversight purposes.

Free speech has positive dimensions of enablement and negative dimensions of non-restraint, both of which require protection for democracy to have substantial communicative legitimacy. In Democracy of Expression, Andrew Kenyon explores this need for sustained plural public speech linked with positive communicative freedom. Drawing on sources from media studies, human rights, political theory, free speech theory and case law, Kenyon shows how positive dimensions of free speech could be imagined and pursued. While recognising that democratic governments face challenges of public communication and free speech that cannot be easily solved, Kenyon argues that understanding the nature of these challenges (including the value of positive free speech) at least makes possible a democracy of expression in which society has a voice, formulates judgments, and makes effective claims of government. In this groundbreaking work, Kenyon not only reframes how we conceptualize free speech, but also provides a roadmap for reform.

This book explains the past and present status of hate speech regulations in Japan. The United States and European countries have adopted different approaches to resolve their respective hate speech problems. Both of them, however, continue to confront the dilemma that freedom of speech and anti-racism are fundamental values of human rights. Therefore, some scholars criticize the US approach as too protective of freedom of speech, while other scholars criticize the European approach as impermissibly violating that freedom. Compared to these countries, Japan is unique in that it does not criminalize hate speech and hate crime other than in the recently enacted Kawasaki City Ordinance criminalizing some kinds of hate speech. Japan basically relies on a comprehensive set of non-regulative tools to suppress extreme hate speech. This volume analyses Japanese hate speech laws and suggests a unique distinctive model to strike a balance between both core values of democracy.

This volume contains articles examining freedom of information statutes, including those protecting government employees who expose official misconduct. Using United States laws as examples, the articles explore the relationship of these laws to administrative and constitutional theory in the United States. In addition, they demonstrate how varying conceptions of information illuminate the controversies in the application of these laws to the revolution in the electronic storage and retrieval of information. The articles allow the reader to speculate how the connection of these laws to liberal democratic theory explains their recent adoption in several countries and their international application.

No Free Speech for Fascists explores the choice of anti-fascist protesters to demand that the opportunities for fascists to speak in public places are rescinded, as a question of history, law, and politics. It explains how the demand to no platform fascists emerged in 1970s Britain, as a limited exception to a left-wing tradition of support for free speech. The book shows how no platform was intended to be applied narrowly, only to a right-wing politics that threatened everyone else. It contrasts the rival idea of opposition to hate speech that also emerged at the same time and is now embodied in European and British anti-discrimination laws. Both no platform and hate speech reject the American First Amendment tradition of free speech, but the ways in which they reject it are different. Behind no platform is not merely a limited range of political targets but a much greater scepticism about the role of the state. The book argues for an idea of no platform which takes on the electronic channels on which so much speech now takes place. It shows where a fascist element can be recognised within the much wider category of far-right speech. This book will be of interest to activists and to those studying and researching political history, law, free speech, the far right, and anti-fascism. It sets out a philosophy of anti-fascism for a social media age.

Emma Goldman's Supreme Court appeal occurred during a transitional point for First Amendment law, as justices began incorporating arguments related to free expression into decisions on espionage and sedition cases. This project analyzes the communications that led to her arrest-writings in Mother Earth, a mass-mailed manifesto, and speeches related to compulsory military service during World War I-as well as the ensuing legal proceedings and media coverage. The authors place Goldman's Supreme Court appeal in the context of the more famous Schenck and Abrams trials to demonstrate her place in First Amendment history while providing insight into wartime censorship and the attitude of the mainstream press toward radical speech.

Convinced that sexual immorality and unstable gender norms were endangering national recovery after World War One, German lawmakers drafted a constitution in 1919 legalizing the censorship of movies and pulp fiction, and prioritizing social rights over individual rights. These provisions enabled legislations to adopt two national censorship laws intended to regulate the movie industry and retail trade in pulp fiction. Both laws had their ideological origins in grass-roots anti-'trash' campaigns inspired by early encounters with commercial mass culture and Germany's federalist structure. Before the war, activists characterized censorship as a form of youth protection. Afterwards, they described it as a form of social welfare. Local activists and authorities enforcing the decisions of federal censors made censorship familiar and respectable even as these laws became a lightning rod for criticism of the young republic. Nazi leaders subsequently refashioned anti-'trash' rhetoric to justify the stringent censorship regime they imposed on Germany.

This is a study of Vietnam's socialist transition and state transformation, generally known as doi moi. It examines the drivers of socialist-regime change, the nature of the doi moi state, and the basis of regime legitimacy in Vietnam. The Element argues that despite its 'one-party rule' label, the party-state apparatus that channels said rule has become fragmented. State-building during the doi moi period involved negotiations and bargaining that redefine authority and power relations within the state apparatus. The party-state's accountability projects are designed to target the specific self-aggrandizing tendencies of the state apparatus, its policies, and abuse of state power. At the leadership level, patterns of resource allocation underlying the doi moi growth model as well as the VCP's cadre rotation approach have accommodated central and sub-national state elites across sectors and levels, helping shore up the legitimacy of the doi moi state in the eyes of the state elite. The combination of sustained economic growth, expansion of political space, accountability, and tolerance of small-scale public protests have been factors in strengthening regime-society legitimization.

'Impassioned, scholarly and succinct' The Times FREE SPEECH AND WHY IT MATTERS Free speech is the bedrock of all our liberties, and yet in recent years it has come to be mistrusted. A new form of social justice activism, which perceives language as potentially violent, has prompted a national debate on where the limitations of acceptable speech should be drawn. Governments throughout Europe have enacted 'hate speech' legislation to curb the dissemination of objectionable ideas, Silicon Valley tech giants are collaborating to ensure that they control the limitations of public discourse, and campaigners in the US are calling for revisions to the First Amendment. However well-intentioned, these trends represent a threat to the freedoms that our ancestors fought and died to secure. In this incisive and fascinating book, Andrew Doyle addresses head-on the most common concerns of free speech sceptics, and offers a timely and robust defence of this most foundational of principles.

Who has the right to speak? How is this right acquired? What happens when this right is denied or inhibited? These are the questions examined by Michel de Certeau in this foundational exploration of political expression and participation.

In The Capture off Speech, de Certeau moves beyond formal or legal definitions of rights. He argues that to "communicate" in a contemporary political system means not only having the abstract possibility of utterance, but possessing the conditions that allow being heard. De Certeau emphasizes that all too often free speech is upheld in the abstract while social institutions work in such a way as to deny access to effective communication.

The book's title essay was written in response to the revolutionary events of May 1968. Almost thirty years later, these essays remain a central resource for exploring de Certeau's political thought.

Two defense experts explore the collision of war, politics, and social media, where the most important battles are now only a click away. Through the weaponization of social media, the internet is changing war and politics, just as war and politics are changing the internet. Terrorists livestream their attacks, "Twitter wars" produce real-world casualties, and viral misinformation alters not just the result of battles, but the very fate of nations. The result is that war, tech, and politics have blurred into a new kind of battlespace that plays out on our smartphones. P. W. Singer and Emerson Brooking tackle the mind-bending questions that arise when war goes online and the online world goes to war. They explore how ISIS copies the Instagram tactics of Taylor Swift, a former World of Warcraft addict foils war crimes thousands of miles away, internet trolls shape elections, and China uses a smartphone app to police the thoughts of 1.4 billion citizens. What can be kept secret in a world of networks? Does social media expose the truth or bury it? And what role do ordinary people now play in international conflicts? Delving into the web's darkest corners, we meet the unexpected warriors of social media, such as the rapper turned jihadist PR czar and the Russian hipsters who wage unceasing infowars against the West. Finally, looking to the crucial years ahead, LikeWar outlines a radical new paradigm for understanding and defending against the unprecedented threats of our networked world.

'Topical, engaging, personable, and above all, reassuring' Dr. Jordan B. Peterson From host of The Rubin Report, the most-watched talk show about free speech and big ideas on YouTube right now, a roadmap for free thinking in an increasingly censored world. The left is no longer liberal. Once on the side of free speech and tolerance, progressives now ban speakers from college campuses, "cancel" people who aren't up to date on the latest genders, and force religious people to violate their conscience. They have abandoned the battle of ideas and have begun fighting a battle of feelings. This uncomfortable truth has turned moderates and true liberals into the politically homeless class. Dave Rubin launched his political talk show The Rubin Report in 2015 as a meeting ground for free thinkers who realize that partisan politics is a dead end. He hosts people he both agrees and disagrees with--including those who have been dismissed, deplatformed, and despised--taking on the most controversial issues of our day. As a result, he's become a voice of reason in a time of madness. Now, Rubin gives you the tools you need to think for yourself in an age when tribal outrage is the only available alternative. Based on his own story as well as his experiences from the front lines of the free speech wars, this book will empower you to make up your own mind about what you believe on any issue and teach you the fine art of: Checking your facts, not your privilege, when it comes to today's most pervasive myths, from the wage gap and gun violence to climate change and hate crimes. Standing up to the mob against today's absurd PC culture, when differences of opinion can bring relationships, professional or personal, to a sudden end. Defending classically liberal principles such as individual rights and limited government, because freedom is impossible without them. The Progressive Woke Machine is waging war against the last free thinkers in the world. Don't Burn This Book is the definitive account of our current political upheaval and your guide to surviving it.

Contrary to popular assumption, the development of stronger oversight mechanisms actually leads to greater secrecy rather than the reverse. When Should State Secrets Stay Secret? examines modern trends in intelligence oversight development by focusing on how American oversight mechanisms combine to bolster an internal security system and thus increase the secrecy of the intelligence enterprise. Genevieve Lester uniquely examines how these oversight mechanisms have developed within all three branches of government, how they interact, and what types of historical pivot points have driven change among them. She disaggregates the concept of accountability into a series of specified criteria in order to grapple with these pivot points. This book concludes with a discussion of a series of normative questions, suggesting ways to improve oversight mechanisms based on the analytical criteria laid out in the analysis. It also includes a chapter on the workings of the CIA to which a number of CIA officers contributed.

At the very start of South Africa's constitutional democracy, openness and transparency had a special place. Reacting against the secrecy of apartheid, the veils would be lifted in a newly open society. And indeed South Africa's access to information law - the Promotion of Access to Information Act, a direct result of the constitutional negotiations - is without parallel in the world. But bureaucracies and their cultures don't change easily. Habits of secrecy die hard and perhaps hardest where institutional capacity is low and organisational resources are scarce. Working against such obstacles, a few valiant organisations including the South African History Archive (SAHA) have been working to push back the entrenched modes of secrecy and instantiate the realm of open democracy. Drawing on the experience of SAHA, the chapters of Paper Wars will be the place to start for any serious scholar or dedicated activist seeking to understand the experience and place of South Africa in the global diffusion of freedom of information regimes. Despite having the law on their side, this book details the difficulties the information activists and requesters have encountered as they have attempted to put South Africa's constitutional right of access to information into practice. Containing essays and case studies, the volume will stand as the record of the initial implementation (or lack thereof) of South Africa's right to know law.

Vast changes in technologies and geopolitics have produced a wholesale shift in the way states and other powerful entities think about the production and retention of popular loyalties. Strategic communication has embraced these changes as stakes increase and the techniques of information management become more pervasive. These shifts in strategic communications impact free speech as major players, in a global context, rhetorically embrace a world of transparency, all the while increasing surveillance and modes of control, turning altered media technologies and traditional media doctrines to their advantage. Building on examples drawn from the Arab Spring, the shaping of the Internet in China, Iran's perception of foreign broadcasting, and Russia's media interventions, this book exposes the anxieties of loss of control, on the one hand, and the missed opportunities for greater freedom, on the other. New strategic communication arises from the vast torrents of information that cross borders and uproot old forms of regulation. Not only states but also corporations, nongovernmental organizations, religious institutions, and others have become part of this new constellation of speakers and audiences."

The influence of media on society is unquestioned. Its reach penetrates nearly every corner of the world and every aspect of life. But it has also been a contested realm, embodying class politics and the interests of monopoly capital. In The Political Economy of Media, one of the foremost media critics of our time, Robert W. McChesney, provides a comprehensive analysis of the economic and political powers that are being mobilized to consolidate private control of media with increasing profit -- all at the expense of democracy.

In this elegant and lucid collection, McChesney examines the monopolistic competition that has created a global media that is ever more concentrated and centralized. McChesney reveals why questions about the ownership of commercial U.S. media remain off limits within the political culture; how private ownership of media leads to the degradation of journalism and suppression of genuine debate; and why corporate rule threatens democracy by failing to provide the means for an educated and informed citizenry. The Political Economy of Media also highlights resistance to corporate media over the last century, including the battle between broadcasters and the public in the 1920s and 1930s and the ongoing media reform movement today. The Political Economy of Media makes it clear that the struggle over the ownership and the role of media is of utmost importance to everyone.

"A liberal society stands on the proposition that we should all take seriously the idea that we might be wrong. This means we must place no one, including ourselves, beyond the reach of criticism; it means that we must allow people to err, even where the error offends and upsets, as it often will." So writes Jonathan Rauch in "Kindly Inquisitors, " which has challenged readers for more than twenty years with its bracing and provocative exploration of the issues surrounding attempts to limit free speech. In it, Rauch makes a persuasive argument for the value of "liberal science" and the idea that conflicting views produce knowledge within society.
In this expanded edition of "Kindly Inquisitors, " a new foreword by George F. Will strikingly shows the book's continued relevance, while a substantial new afterword by Rauch elaborates upon his original argument and brings it fully up to date. Two decades after the book's initial publication, while some progress has been made, the regulation of hate speech has grown domestically--especially in American universities--and has spread even more internationally, where there is no First Amendment to serve as a meaningful check. But the answer to bias and prejudice, Rauch argues, is pluralism--not purism. Rather than attempting to legislate bias and prejudice out of existence or to drive them underground, we must pit them against one another to foster a more vigorous and fruitful discussion. It is this process that has been responsible for the growing acceptance of the moral acceptability of homosexuality over the last twenty years. And it is this process, Rauch argues, that will enable us as a society to replace hate with knowledge, both ethical and empirical.
"It is a melancholy fact that this elegant book, which is slender and sharp as a stiletto, is needed, now even more than two decades ago. Armed with it, readers can slice through the pernicious ideas that are producing the still-thickening thicket of rules, codes, and regulations restricting freedom of thought and expression."--George F. Will, from the foreword

Sponsored by the Communication, Information Technologies, and Media Sociology section of the American Sociological Association (CITAMS), this book explores the complex construction of democratic public dialogue in developing countries. Case studies examine national environments defined not only by state censorship and commercial pressure, but also language differences, international influence, social divisions, and distinct value systems. With fresh portraits of new and traditional media throughout Africa, Latin America and Asia, authors delve into the essential role of the media in developing countries. Case studies illuminate the relationship between the State and the media in Russia, as well as the challenges faced by journalists working in Kurdistan. Further cases reveal bureaucratic censorship of books in Brazil, regulatory dilemmas in Australia, state policies in post-colonial Malawi, and the potential of oral culture for the strengthening of democratic conversation. Media, Development and Democracy brings the liberal democratic media model into new terrains where some of its core assumptions do not hold. In doing so, the authors' collective voices illuminate pressing issues facing our current global dialogue and our liberal and democratic expectations concerning communications and the media. This essential volume works as a magnifying glass for our current times, forcing us to question what kind of media we want today

Rather than abstract philosophical discussion or yet another analysis of legal doctrine, Speech and Silence in American Law seeks to situate speech and silence, locating them in particular circumstances and contexts and asking how context matters in facilitating speech or demanding silence. To understand speech and silence we have to inquire into their social life and examine the occasions and practices that call them forth and that give them meaning. Among the questions addressed in this book are: who is authorized to speak? And what are the conditions that should be attached to the speaking subject? Are there occasions that call for speech and others that demand silence? What is the relationship between the speech act and the speaker? Taking these questions into account helps readers understand what compels speakers and what problems accompany speech without a known speaker, allowing us to assess how silence speaks and how speech renders the silent more knowable.

No figure stands taller in the world of First Amendment law than Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. This is the first anthology of Justice Holmes's writings, speeches and opinions concerning freedom of expression. The book contains eight original essays designed to situate Holmes's works in historical and biographical context. The volume is enriched by extensive commentaries concerning its many entries, which consist of letters, speeches, book excerpts, articles, state court opinions and U.S. Supreme Court opinions. The edited materials - spanning Holmes's 1861-1864 service in the Civil War to his 1931 radio address to the nation - offer a unique view of the thoughts of the father of the modern First Amendment. The book's epilogue, which includes a major discovery about Holmes's impact on American statutory law, explores Holmes's free speech legacy. In the process, the reader comes to know Holmes and his jurisprudence of free speech as never before.

Rather than abstract philosophical discussion or yet another analysis of legal doctrine, Speech and Silence in American Law seeks to situate speech and silence, locating them in particular circumstances and contexts and asking how context matters in facilitating speech or demanding silence. To understand speech and silence we have to inquire into their social life and examine the occasions and practices that call them forth and that give them meaning. Among the questions addressed in this book are, Who is authorized to speak? And what are the conditions that should be attached to the speaking subject? Are there occasions that call for speech and others that demand silence? What is the relationship between the speech act and the speaker? Taking these questions into account helps readers understand what compels speakers and what problems accompany speech without a known speaker, allowing us to assess how silence speaks and how speech renders the silent more knowable.