Is ‘freedom of expression’ a desirable and feasible end? Answer this in a way that connects with both academic sources and the current state of the media, using appropriate illustrative examples.
Media Culture & Society
Freedom of expression is where an individual has the right given to them by the state to say or do anything he or she wants that substantiates his or her opinions. Article 19 of the Declaration of Human Rights states, “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression, without interference. And the right to seek, receive, and impart through mediums.” The articles protectorates therefore receive the right of expression. However if it wasn’t for other laws and philosophical boundaries, unlimited freedoms would have society evolving into states of anarchy. “[A]narchy, which many feel is the highest realization of individual liberty?... Mill takes the view that if people are given complete freedom then some will surely abuse it, using the absence of government to exploit others.”
The first limitation to freedom of expression starts at the prevention of anarchy. “All that makes existence valuable to anyone depends on the enforcement of restraints upon the actions of other people.” John Stuart Mill called this restriction the ‘harm principle’. People should have the right to say and do what they please but not at the expense to other people. “The only purpose, for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant. ...What needs to be determined is the correct mix of freedom and authority.”
Looking at the recent programming of Question time on the 22nd of October with Nick Griffin of the British National Party (BNP), there sparked a question of whether the views of Nick Griffin and the BNP should be protected under rights of freedom of expression, or not, in conjunction with a ‘harm principle’. Firstly can the views of Nick Griffin and the BNP be classed as false, and be censored because they are false. “Many beliefs that were once held as certainties have been considered by later generations not only to be false but to be absurd. This not being an argument that the views of both parties are false or not, but the actions taken after people decide a certain view is false or morally wrong. Therefore should the reaction to Mr. Griffin not be for the opposite representatives like David Cameron and Gordon Brown (and associate parties) to slander and revoke his views, but to present what society can do in opposition of his certain views. Enforcement of the ‘harm principle’ doesn’t have to be exercised with a ‘police action’ but a political one. “Never thinks Mill, have we the right to claim infallibility” and defiantly so strictly.
“If you want to know whether a nation is truly democratic, one measure will give you an answer with near certitude: How does the state treat the press?With Freedom of expression come a free press. However history shows that freedoms can be bought. In 1993 the FDA of USA approved a new drug for the company Monsanto, which was a laboratory manufactured hormone that would be injected into cows to increase milk production. What the FDA never found out first hand was the hormone increased cows susceptibility to infection which resulted in contamination of milk. “Controversy over this matter erupted again in the US because of ... Steve Wilson and Jane Akre... [T]he Fox Network, who was so enthused about the series titled “Mystery in Your Milk” that they considered radio time to advertise it. Monsanto got wind of it and promptly had their lawyers send threatening letters to the Network. Trying to salvage their work and appease the network as well as Monsanto, the journalists spent the next seven months rewriting the series no less than 83 times... In the end, they were offered nearly $200,000 to go away quietly and say nothing about the TV station’s handling of the story. When they refused, their contract was not renewed.”
Monsanto was able to suppress the reporting of the news, which would have had great effect on public opinion and purchase of their product. They were able to do this because Fox Network not only had to consider the journalists rights, but that Monsanto was a large advertiser for their entire network. Free press and therefore the journalists rights to freedom of expression and the public right to freedom of information was under serious consideration and could have a different outcome if more money was in play, an example that the freedoms can come at a price and can be bought.
One of the most remembered infringements in Britain on the rights to free press and expression is in 1972 when “The BBC stood up to what was described by all sides as the most intense pressure... to stop a three-hour programme called ‘The Question of Ulster: An Inquiry into the future.” They ignored the pressure to show broadcast of the activities of the IRA until the existence of a Panorama filming of an IRA roadblock. It “...led to the Prime Minister to say in Parliament that it was ‘time for the BBC to put its own house in order’. Taking the hint, the BBC sacked the editor of Panorama, Roger Bolton.” Defending herself she was quoted “Let me be clear: yes, I do say things to the media, I do request them. But I am never going to put censorship on – we are not that kind of party”Mrs Thatcher may claim that this was not censorship and not so again in 1988, but it was pressure on Britain’s major news outlet that had a responsibility to the audience of the entire nation to report the news. So to some degree the rights of opposing parties, the media and the public were violated, without a prosecution. Luckily the media today has changed, having learned from their mistakes the BBC takes no pressure from the government on the content of its reports. The BBC isn’t government run but is funded by the people through TV licence fees, it is an unbiased entity that reports the news.
A second limitation is that there are current countries, societies and people that do not have and would not benefit if not hinder, from the rights to freedom of expression. John Mill calls this the ‘Liberty Principle’ and that Freedom of expression is only for the ‘civilized community’. “Liberty is valuable as a means to improvement – moral progress. Under some circumstances liberty will, just as likely, have the opposite effect, and so progress will have to be effected by some other means.”He states that children should not benefit from this right, as they should not be free to choose to learn how to read and write. “If we choose free speech in preference to competing values we are supported by three powerful reasons. First, by claim that it is an essential part of the democratic process. Second, emphasis is sometimes placed on the idea that it is a vital adjunct to the autonomous life. How we can develop as human individuals if we do not have the opportunity to debate, to give and to receive information and ideas?”Countries that live under a non democratic rule would benefit negatively if they were given rights that could be exploited for the gain of the government or other companies and institutions. Third world countries would not consider the individual liberty of expression to be a progress in society, the need for food, water and peace will be placed above such liberty. Places like this require the rights to live, to protection or to worship rather than the right to speak. However the right to free expression under a democratic society enables the public to decide how their government rule and their country turns out. The vote gives power to the public rather than the institutions that run society.
Habermas defined the public sphere “as a virtual or imaginary community which does not necessarily exist in any identifiable space. In its ideal form, the public sphere is made up of private people gathered together as a public and articulating the needs of society with the state."New technologies like, telecommunications and the internet have expanded on people’s rights to freedom of expression. What the Internet has done since its creation, is increase the size of public spheres and create a better transnational democracy. “[F]ace-to-face communication imposes severe spatial and temporal restrictions on public and political interaction.” And so “At the very least, computer-mediated communication offers a potentially new solution to the problem of the extension of communicative interactions across space and time and thus, perhaps, signals the emergence of a public sphere that is not subject to the specific linguistic, cultural and spatial limitations of the bounded national public spheres, that have up to now supported representative democratic institutions.”
Social networking and its content, like ‘Facebook’ and ‘Twitter’ is public created and is not the publications of government or private institutions, giving the people greater freedom, not just so that they can speak out, but so they know that they are being heard without interference. However the speed of the internet gives people the ability to infringe on others rights and freedoms, like racial hatred or slander, which can in time be censored, but once an opinion is expressed using the internet, it can already have been heard by a large population.
All in all freedom of expression is something that greatly benefits democratic societies like the United Kingdom and the United States. It works to empower the public of a democratic society, and it is something that nations should work to bring to the entire world and its people. Even though history has shown exploits of free speech, there has been resolve, and in every situation the power of free speech has been solidified and grown even more powerful. In our society it is greatly valued by the public at large and is the only thing the weakest and poorest people have to hold against how things change in their community. Whether or not our freedom to express lives on is again the public’s responsibility, exercising their rights is a major way to keep their freedom alive.
What a nation should be conscious of is a greater level of restrictions, it can be said that with more laws of that prohibit, the public looses more and more of their freedom. So are we living in a world where we are free to say and do as we please, or does the system and infrastructure limit us into a way of living, which is clocked in a declaration stating we are free?
