Free Speech in Great Britain

  Christian Einsiedel Free speech in Great Britain p 2 of  19

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 Pluralism  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  

Christian Einsiedel Free speech in Great Britain p. 3 of 19

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.

Christian Einsiedel Free speech in Great Britain p. 4 of 19

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

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

Christian Einsiedel Free speech in Great Britain p. 5 of 19 Iranian regime drastically denied Rushdie the freedom of expression, as it apparently 'endangered their purpose'.

According to Simon Lee, "where Rushdie has antagonised many is in seeming to have ignored the possibility of tolerating the evils of fundamentalism. Yet we know also that

there comes a point when it becomes intolerable to tolerate the intolerant" 5 . Implicitly,

this again is a consequentionalist justification for freedom of expression (seen as a weapon against intolerance) which is based on the author's personal set of values, not on a 'free speech principle'.

The impact this differentiation has on the conditions of free speech in both politically regulated as well as market oriented media systems will be further analysed in the third chapter.

2.2 Freedom of the press

The First Amendment of the American constitution's Bill of Rights differentiates

between freedom of speech and that of the press. 6 Referring to this separation, Edwin C.

Baker argues that "the only persuasive (secular) reason to give constitutional protection

to an institution are instrumental judgements that doing so will serve human values." 7 It

is unquestioned that the press is such an institution, seen as a 'public good' worth protecting.

And yet, since it has considerably greater reach than a single speaker could ever have, and messages delivered through it will thus have a bigger impact, the same view is also widely used to justify regulation. This is especially the case if the press acts contrary to the 'human values' its constitutional protection was intended to serve. In the words of Bikhu Parekh, a press which is "public, powerful, reaches out to millions, has no institutional check and is capable of causing considerable damage to ordinary men an

5 LEE, Simon, The cost of free speech, London, 1990, p. 130

6 The First Amendment reads: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of

the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.", Congress

of the United States, March 4, 1789, Bill of Rights, online on the Internet, URL:

http://Constitution.by.net/uSA/BillOfRights.html [Status: 22 Mar 1999]

7 BAKER, Edwin C., Advertising and a democratic press, Princeton, 1994, p. 118

Christian Einsiedel Free speech in Great Britain p. 6 of 19 women is rightly subject to greater constraints." 8 This is true at least if the press is seen

as a 'public good' serving human values.

2.3 Free access to information

Free access to information is closely related to freedom of expression, since the availability of information determines what can be spoken about. Three areas in which free access to information seems problematic will be examined in the following paragraphs.

2.3.1 Technical and financial access

Free access to information that is distributed through audiovisual media is not possible without the technical means to receive transmissions. Although the access to these media in Britain is not 'free' due to the existence of the license fee, almost everybody has access to radio and TV 9 . However, the problem of technical access is likely to

reoccur with the emergence of new media technology, as the example of the Internet shows.

Looking beyond the British horizon, it must also be considered that "in a world where, according to the international Telecommunication Union, half of humanity is more than a two-hour walk away from a phone, we are still talking about sharp divisions between a small, information-rich section of humanity and the rest." 10

This implicates that together with technical barriers, there will also be financial ones - money is needed to gain access to information. Media companies spend money to unearth genuine information, and the recipients pay to get access to the mediated product, be it indirectly by acquiring a radio, a TV set, a computer and modem etc., or openly by actually buying a newspaper or subscribing to a pay-TV channel.

8 PAREKH, p. 74

9 according to the BBC, the "estimated proportion of all UK households viewing and listening to at least

two hours of programming per week" is at 94% for 1998 (BBC viewers only) - see BBC Online,

Financial Statements 1997/98, Facts and figures, online on the Internet, URL:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/info/report98/financial/facts1.shtml [Status: 01 Apr 1999]

10 WILLIAMS, Granville, Britain's media: How they are related - Media ownership and democracy,

London, 1996, p. 19