Policy of Free Speech and Free Press - Essay Example

Policy and regulation & Censorship, free speech and free press Text Media Every citizen has the freedom of expression in writing and publishing of a text as long as it is done with ultimate responsibility. A person should not exercise their rights at the detriment of the state or other person. The regulation of text media is effected by policies which are set to oversee the operations of the media. A policy is an idea about how a particular activity should be organized, it can be a law that cements (or prohibits) an approach. Policies are a way of governing both the citizens and institutions usually at a national level. Policies are made by elected officials such as MPs, civil servants, industry experts, think tanks, and organized groups such as corporate lobbyists, pressure groups, unions and even the media. Policy affects the media in a number of ways, it determines who can own media (i.e. ownership rules), it also determines who can broadcast, the manner in which the media is to be funded, the content that will appear in the media, who can access certain materials, determines what can be said in certain contexts (censorship). Media policy mainly focuses on audiovisual broadcasting, media concentration and state aid, because these are the central fields of media policy. In recent time phrases such as media governance offers a new approach to describe, explain and criticize media policy and regulation. It is for this reason that many scholars have viewed it as a new way of looking at the diverse modes, actors and levels of governing the media beyond the traditional focus on national governments and formal regulations. Media policy has uncertain identity, both as a research object and as an analytical term. Media policy can thus to be said as a regulation of the media, it normally takes place within a broader framework of principle and policy. It can be looked in terms of hierarchy, within three main levels of that consist of theory, policy and regulation, in increasing degree of specificity, and then means of implementation follows. An all-encompassing idea such as freedom of expression can be articulated in broad policies for communications media. It is such ideas that provide directional and legitimation for proposals and actions to secure the public interest. The policies have to be then implemented in regulations that are applied either formally as legal or administrative rules or informally as voluntary industry and professional self-regulation. The matter that is regulated or self-regulated include the media structure, conduct and content, in additional to various technical and organizational matters. Policies which are projects of the government in respective countries are made to suite their respective media systems. This communication policies or media policies are usually formulated as a result of pressures from public opinion or self-interested groups such as branch of the media industry. The media policies organizes goals and means of action in relation to the media in general, to one media sector or some problematic issue and the policy making process typically concerning the manifestation of conflicting interests. There are some struggles that arise over the media policy due to some opposition such as public versus private interests, economic versus social or cultural interests and international versus national or local interests. as it have been stated above the main different levels where the media policies can be formulated is at the transnational, national and the local level. The policy actors in the first level can be UNESCO, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) or the European commission (EC). When it comes to the national level there can be a wide range of actors and interests that can include political bodies, labor unions and media industry interests. The local level can be in the jurisdiction of the local authority in that region. Political and culture physiques also champion media provision for special for special needs. Media policy making can follow or appeal to a variety of different logics according to which an actor involve in the policy process. Logic in this case refers to the “perception of the situation and the structure of goals and means…in a given situation” (Collina, Richard and Murroni, Cristina, 1986). Logic of policy can be considered as regular reasonable of thinking and related to particular goals. The most relevant kinds of logic for media policy and regulation include political (based mainly on partisanship), administrative (reflecting organizational efficiency), commercial (refers to profitability), industrial (related to broader national economic strategies), cultural (depending on a choice of values, for instance relating to language, nation, ethnicity, community, gender) and, technical (operating efficiency and technology innovation). Regulation in Newspaper Press There are some specific patterns that the media regulation from the press takes. The basic model for the press in western democracies is one of the freedoms from any government regulation and control that involve an advance licensing. Censorship, limits to freedom of publication or punishment after the event. Press freedom is so close to but not identical to freedom and expression. It applies specifically to expression that is made public and intended for unrestricted broadcasting. This has been hallowed as a principle in national constitutions and in international charters such as the UN treaty (article 19) and the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR, article 10). Press freedom in these documents is often made restricted on respect for the rights of others and other laws. Goals that pursue press policy include maintaining diversity; protecting the public from abuses of press power; ensuring high standards of news and promoting the essential contribution that the press makes to the democratic process. To regulate this aims is very difficult to apply because of the risk of undermining press independence. It is also important to note that any effort that is designed to secure freedom of the press or to improve the performance can also be viewed as an intervention which reduces press freedom. This is the primary paradox of regulation of newspaper press (Freedman, 2008). The solution to this can be thinking in terms of alternative concepts of freedom. There is a distinction between negative and positive concept of press freedom. The negative concept rules out any government actions in associations to the press, it then leaves it to the free market and maintaining the pure principle of freedom to the maximum extent, whatsoever is the consequence. The epitome of a negative version is represented by the first amendment to the US constitution (1791) which states that “Congress shall make no law...abridging freedom of speech, or press..." when we look at the positive concept of press freedom, it is mostly concerned with particle realization of the goals that we had noted previously but with a restricted harm that is caused by unstrained market forces. According to Picard (1985) Positive press freedom is intended to promote the free flow of diverse ideas and public debate by removing and guarding against barriers to that flow". This ensures that the necessary conditions for freedom are maintained. The basis of this analysis can be deduced that there are two main types of regulation of the newspaper press, one is fundamentally negative and reactive, it is aimed to counter threats to press independence and diversity, the is positive and enabling. From the former case when threats don’t come from the government they will come from the natural processes of market concentration or from the energies of powerful economic or political forces that stops the press from speaking out (Freedman, 2008). These efforts can take criminal form such as threats and violence, the rule of law can be applied to enhance protection. Most regulatory responses are intended to restrict concentration. When some economic support is issued to a press media it will act as a regulatory measure and in favor of the one issuing the support. The study of media policy is thus very important as it enables one to think and understand how the institution shape the media, the manner in which the public is involved in shaping the media, how different forces (economic, political etc.) implicate the media and finally to understand the context of media regulation. In conclusion as we try to answer the question ‘what is the actual role of the Commission’s media policies?’ in relation to the subject of concentration and pluralism for European publicity, we can say that the commission has the ability to influence publicity the TWF directives is an example that can reveal that media policies are still an ongoing process of development; and the commission tries to regulate the media content. In Europe also the commission had tried to ensure and support pluralism in order to influence publicity but it failed in the dimension it wanted to set up its own policy so up to now it relies on its competition policy Censorship, free speech and free press When one think about censorship in this modern times, occasions where the governments have intimidated the freedom of speech across the globe comes to mind. As everyone agrees that democracy is a good thing so does freedom of speech and information is considered as central to democracy. “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media regardless of frontiers” (UN Declaration of Human Rights, 1948). Though freedom of speech is fundamental in some junctures especially in the democratic states it is justifiable due to some reasons. The justifiable reason that censorship is advocated for includeoccasions whereby it will compromise the national security, libel, obscenity, indecency racial and religious hatred such as hate speech and any other are justifiable reason. Cyberspace has been viewed as political challenge which can enhance democracy and therefore imposing a threat to the authority, this has made the authoritarian regimes to apply severe censorship online to minimize and eradicate negative political effect from the internet (Kalathil and Boas 2001, Hachigian 2002, Deibert 2002, Gomez 2004). An authoritarian regime worries because of the invisible challenge that it may receive (Hachigian 2002). A single state that introduces internet to the public does not change the power it poses but the persuasive power that it possess can have no effect when it comes to shaping public opinion. A good example is china which is an authoritarian state; it has adopted tactics which restrict access, content or both. This has made Google to censor some of its results in china; this is due to the fact that the government has banned some phrases such as human rights, genocide and 4 June (the date of Tiananmen Square massacre) from the search engines. These banned terms are provided by the country’s internet censor called China Internet Illegal Information Reporting Centre (CIIRC).Google has employed other methods like blocking the entire website with the so called ‘offensive content’ or it removes some specific web addresses this ensures that it complies to the latter with the government of Beijing. Google is not the only company that has worked under self-censorship inside china. Other corporations such as Microsoft and yahoo have also acted in a manner to sensor themselves in order not to make any offence to CIIRC. The Chinese government has viewed employment of panoptic on system to be very beneficial as self-censorship is often even more pernicious and successful than its own attempt to filter the web. Self-censorship online is considered as the most effective way of controlling individuals and online journalists in regard to internet in china (Hachigian, 2002). The party state has achieved control over information by turning every worker media worker into a meticulous self-censor (Wu, 2002). In Lancashire a man was sentenced to 12 weeks in a young offender’s institution for making some very poor jokes. Woods, 20, was arrested after posting jokes about missing Welish schoolgirl April jones. According to reports, Woods was charged under sec 127 of the Communication Act- the same law that was applicable to twitter joke trial. The defendant who was Paul Chambers found himself on the wrong side. The case was preceded over by the chief justice indicated vividly that the communication act should not weaken “Satirical, or iconoclastic, or rude comment, the expression of unpopular or unfashionable opinion about serious or trivial matters, banter or humor, even if distasteful to some or painful to those subjected to it” This was used to exactly diminish Woods’s right to express unpopular, unfashionable and distasteful humor. This can be said to very uncouth verdict as no one should be put to prison for posting a joke that other don’t like. A joke does not qualify to be a case of indecency. Another conviction that took place was that of Liam Stacey’s, she was sentenced because of tweeting stupid comment about footballer Fabrice Muamba. This is can be described as a situation where one is found to be guilty of crimes against taste and sentiment. This should make room for provision of new guidelines regarding the prosecution of social media cases. This is because they are a danger to free speech and hazard to the web. Laws should be formulated that will accommodate free expression online. There have been occasions of unofficial censorship, on 29th of January 2013, Sunday Times Editor Martin Ivenes was forced to apologize for publishing a cartoon by Gerald Scarfe depicting Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu. This was appeared in a time when the British were marking the Holocaust Memorial Day. The cartoon which was depicting the Palestinians been crashed by the Israeli leader who was building a wall in the process. The apology came after a lot of intimidation from the public through criticism. It seems very odd to apologize for a “grotesque, offensive” cartoon. By all means and nature cartoons should be grotesque, and to some extent offensive. Robert Edwards was sentenced in 1981 for “aiding and abetting, counseling and procuring the publication of material likely to incite racial hatred.” Robert Edwards work was transparent to say the least his conviction came after the publication of such as the ‘Storme’r that was viewed to target black and Asian people. More recently in 2009 Simon shepherd and Stephen whittle were convicted for several offences that included pushing a leaflet entitled Tales of the hoax through the door of a black pool synagogue. This depicts clearly that Scarfe’s blood-spattered commentary on Netanyahu is quite different to the output of Edwards, whittle and shepherd. I can therefore concur with Murdoch’s tweet that the intervention of around 20 MPs writing a letter demanding an apology from the Sunday times was a dismayingly knee-jerk reaction. Such incidences have made artists all over the world to gain fear of expressing themselves, so as not to fall foul of politicians, community leaders, commercial sponsors or even a twitter mob. References Collini, S. (2010) That’s Offensive!: Criticism, Identity, Respect, London: Seagull Books, pp. 10- 24 Collina, Richard and Murroni, Cristina (1996) New Media, New Policies, Cambridge: Polity Cumberbatch, G. & Howitt, D. (1989) A Measure of Uncertainty: The Effects of the Mass Media, London: John Libbey. Freedman, D. (2008) ‘Introducing media policy’ in The Politics of Media Policy, Cambridge: Polity Press. Gibbons, T. (1998) Regulating the Media, London: Sweet and Maxwell Hachigian, N. (2002) ‘The Internet and Power in one-Party East Asian States’, The Washington Quarterly, 25, no. 3, 41-58 Kalathil, S. and Boas, T. C. (2001), The Internet and State Control in Authoritarian Regimes: China, Cuba, and the Counterrevolution Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Lee, Simon (1990). The Cost of Free Speech, London: Faber. Post, Robert C. (1998) “Censorship and Silencing” in Post, Robert C. (ed.) Censorship and Silencing: Practices of Cultural Regulation Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, pp.1-5 Warburton, N. (2009) Free Speech: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, Chapter 1 ‘Free Speech’ Wu, X. (2002) ‘Turning Everyone into a Censor: The Chinese Communist Partys All-Directional Control over the Media’, Big News, Internet WWW page at URL: http://www.bignews.org/2002.html (accessed 11/04/2014) Read More