Why the First Amendment fails to protect speech rights, and what to do about it

AUSTIN, Texas − Oct. 31, 2006 − Laura Stein, an assistant professor in the Department of Radio-TV-Film at The University of Texas at Austin, examines the failure of current understandings of speech rights to protect democratic communication in the U.S. media in her book “Speech Rights in America: The First Amendment, Democracy, and the Media.”

With the growing commercialization and concentration of the media, opportunities for ordinary citizens to access these forums are becoming more constrained. Even the Internet, once heralded as the most open of communications spaces, is increasingly subject to the control of market imperatives and technology infrastructure owners.

“The ways in which the courts interpret the First Amendment unduly constrict the speech rights of citizens,” said Stein. “Legal interpretations of the First Amendment − the principle guarantor of speech rights in the United States − often privilege the interests of media owners over those of the broader citizenry, in effect preventing the First Amendment from performing its critical role as a protector of free speech, alienating citizens from their rights and undermining the potential for democratic communication.”

Stein locates the source of clashes over First Amendment interpretations in the differing views of neoliberal and participatory democratic theory on the meaning of rights and the role of communication in democratic processes. In her book, she proposes an alternative set of principles to guide future judicial, legislative, and cultural policy on old and new media.

“What is at stake is not just the issue of who has speech rights in the media,” she continued, “But who can participate in the national conversation that is vital to a democratic society.”

About the author

Dr. Stein researches and writes about communication law and policy, political communication, and alternative and public media. She is currently working on an edited collection, titled "Making Our Media: Global Initiatives Toward a Democratic Public Sphere," about grassroots attempts to transform the policy and practice of information and communication media around the world.

“Speech Rights in America: The First Amendment, Democracy, and the Media,” by Laura Stein. Cloth, ISBN: 0-252-03075-3 184 pages, Publication date: October 2, 2006

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Contact: Michael Roux

(217) 244-4689

mroux@uillinois.edu