Digital Speech and Democratic Culture: a Theory of Freedom of Expression for the Information Society
Digital Speech and Democratic Culture: a Theory of Freedom of Expression for the Information Society
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数字语音与民主文化：信息社会的言论自由理论
DOI：
10.2139/ssrn.470842
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发表时间：
2003
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
J. Balkin
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
J. Balkin
本文认为，数字技术改变了言论的社会条件，因此应该改变言论自由理论的重点，从一个Meiklejohnian或共和党的关注，保护民主进程和民主审议，以保护和促进民主文化更大的关注。民主文化是这样一种文化，在这种文化中，个人有公平的机会参与各种形式的意义创造，而这些意义创造使他们成为个人。民主文化是关于个人自由和集体自治的;它涉及每个人参与文化生产和分配的能力。本文认为，梅克尔约翰和他的追随者受到了由20世纪世纪大众媒体兴起所产生的社会条件的影响，在这种条件下，只有相对少数的人可以向大量的人广播。共和主义或进步主义的言论自由理论也倾向于淡化非政治表达、流行文化和个人自由的重要性。这种方法的局限性在互联网时代变得越来越明显。数字技术通过改变社会话语条件，引发了围绕信息资本所有权和控制权的新的社会冲突。言论自由原则是许多这些冲突的战场。例如，媒体公司广泛地解释言论自由原则，以对抗对数字网络的监管，而狭义地解释言论自由原则，以保护和扩大其知识产权。数字时代大大扩大了个人参与文化发展和传播的可能性，从而大大扩大了实现真正民主文化的可能性。但同样的技术也产生了新的控制方法，可能会限制民主文化的参与。因此，言论自由的价值观-互动、大众参与以及修改和改造文化的能力-必须通过技术设计、通过对技术的行政和立法管制，以及通过司法创造和承认宪法权利的更传统的方法来加以保护。言论自由将越来越取决于支持言论自由制度和确保广泛民主参与的技术基础设施的设计。法院的体制限制将使它们无法触及有关如何设计和实施基础设施的最重要问题。维护言论自由将越来越多地落在立法机构、行政机构和技术人员的肩上。
This essay argues that digital technologies alter the social conditions of speech and therefore should change the focus of free speech theory from a Meiklejohnian or republican concern with protecting democratic process and democratic deliberation to a larger concern with protecting and promoting a democratic culture. A democratic culture is a culture in which individuals have a fair opportunity to participate in the forms of meaning - making that constitute them as individuals. Democratic culture is about individual liberty as well as collective self-governance; it concerns each individual's ability to participate in the production and distribution of culture. The essay argues that Meiklejohn and his followers were influenced by the social conditions of speech produced by the rise of mass media in the twentieth century, in which only a relative few could broadcast to large numbers of people. Republican or progressivist theories of free speech also tend to downplay the importance of nonpolitical expression, popular culture, and individual liberty. The limitations of this approach have become increasingly apparent in the age of the Internet. By changing the social conditions of speech, digital technologies lead to new social conflicts over the ownership and control of informational capital. The free speech principle is the battleground over many of these conflicts. For example, media companies have interpreted the free speech principle broadly to combat regulation of digital networks and narrowly in order to protect and expand their intellectual property rights. The digital age greatly expands the possibilities for individual participation in the growth and spread of culture, and thus greatly expands the possibilities for the realization of a truly democratic culture. But the same technologies also produce new methods of control that can limit democratic cultural participation. Therefore, free speech values - interactivity, mass participation, and the ability to modify and transform culture - must be protected through technological design and through administrative and legislative regulation of technology, as well as through the more traditional method of judicial creation and recognition of constitutional rights. Increasingly, freedom of speech will depend on the design of the technological infrastructure that supports the system of free expression and secures widespread democratic participation. Institutional limitations of courts will prevent them from reaching the most important questions about how that infrastructure is designed and implemented. Safeguarding freedom of speech will increasingly fall to legislatures, administrative agencies, and technologists.