SY4882 - 1999
Culture, Modernity and the Media
Assessed essay, 08 Apr 1999
No. of words: 3964 (including quotations)

Free speech in Great Britain
Natural limitations, political and economic pressure,
implications of technological change.

Christian Einsiedel

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

1 INTRODUCTION ... 3

2 FREE SPEECH  ... 4

2.1 Freedom of expression  ... 4
2.2 Freedom of the press  ... 5
2.3 Free access to information  ... 6
2.3.1 Technical and financial access ... 6
2.3.2 Media Pluralis ...  7
2.3.3 Media access for self-representation ... 8

3 FREE SPEECH, POLITICAL AND MARKET REGULATION ... 9

3.1 Free speech in a politically regulated media environment  ... 9
3.2 Free speech in a deregulated media market ... 11

4 FREE SPEECH AND TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGE ... 14

5 CONCLUSION AND OUTLOOK ... 17

6 BIBLIOGRAPHY ... 18

1 INTRODUCTION

Few people would deny that free speech is a pillar of democracy that has to be vigorously defended against anyone trying to restrict it. Free speech, it seems, holds a strong position in modern Western societies like the British.
I will argue in the following pages that this is only partly true. Beginning with an examination of the very nature of free speech, I will show that it is rather a means to an end than a high democratic principle. I will then discuss how a free flow of information is limited by the transporting media, and how both political and economic imperatives can lead to further restriction. Wherever possible, I will use examples from the British media history to illustrate this argument.
Having thus developed a more realistic picture of what the current situation of free speech is like, I will look at the implications of technological change in the media. With the help of a speculative scenario I will argue that this change provides a chance to overcome current limitations.
Personally, I think this is something worth striving for. This essay may thus be regarded as an explanation as well as a defence of this point of view. At the very least, however, it should mark a contribution to a more rational discourse about free speech and democracy.

2 FREE SPEECH

To understand the following argument, it is useful to start with a differentiation between freedom of expression, freedom of the press and free access to information. The phrase ′free speech′ that is used later on is meant to include these notions for reasons of simplicity.

2.1 Freedom of expression

"Freedom of expression is an essential condition for the discovery of truth, enabling old ideas to be challenged and new ones established. It provides a mechanism for the control of economic and political power, by publicising cases of injustice and helping to make the powerful accountable for their actions."1

This quote, taken from an essay on the Rushdie affair by Albert Weale, expresses a view that is shared in most Western societies, illustrating the value free speech holds in a democracy. In commenting on this, it is important to understand Stanley Fish′s notion of free speech as necessarily ′consequentionalist′2 - being no principle or value as such, but seen as a means to protect some other value, and only therefore being protected itself.
According to Fish, freedom of expression "could only be a primary value if what you are valuing is the right to make noise; but if you are engaged in some purposive activity in the course of which speech happens to be produced, sooner or later you will come to a point when you decide that some forms of speech do not further but endanger that purpose."3
The Rushdie affair illustrates this idea: In Western societies, the ′Satanic Verses′ was seen as protected under freedom of expression legislation, which ′furthers the purpose′ of democracy in the way Weale describes it. Many Muslims, however, regarded the book as an "offence to people′s deeply held feelings and sacred heritage",4 and thus the Iranian regime drastically denied Rushdie the freedom of expression, as it apparently ′endangered their purpose′.

[...]

1 WEALE, Albert, Freedom of speech vs freedom of Religion?, in: PAREKH 1990, p. 52
2 see FISH, Stanley, There′s no such thing as free speech - and it′s a good thing, too, Oxford, 1994, p.
14/15
3 ibid., p. 107
4 PAREKH, Bikhu, The Rushdie Affair and the British press: Some Salutary lessons, in: PAREKH 1990,
p. 77