media and law ppt1

8/3/2019 Media and Law Ppt1

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Evolutionary scientists have identified that the mostdistinguishing feature of human beings (Homo sapiens)is their capacity for complex language, although it is stillnot clear when this capacity developed (theories aboutthe emergence of spoken language range from 100,000 to

over one million years ago). The development of the firstwritten language is better understood. Written languageemerged in the fourth millennium BC (40003000 BC),with the first known examples being Sumerian, whichwas a cuneiform (pictographic) language used in

southern Mesopotamia, and Egyptian hieroglyphics.Both written languages coincide with the rise of theearliest human civilizations.


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Over time, opposing forces arose: the need to expressideas and opinions in written form, and the desire by

some to control free expression. Thus, the Greek epic

poet Homer (ninth or eighth century BC) supported free

expression, but Solon (630560 BC), the first greatlawmaker of Athens, banned "speaking evil against the

living and the dead."

After the Peloponnesian Wars, the Athenian Assembly

ordered Socrates to drink poison as punishment forlecturing about unrecognized gods and corrupting youth

by encouraging them to question authority.


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Until the Enlightenment (17th and 18th centuriesin Europe), censorship was the dominant practice of

governments. Autocrats generally forbade any

questioning of their right to rule, their policies, or

their behavior. In mid-15th-century Europe,

Johannes Gutenberg's introduction of the printing

press with movable type allowed for the mass

production of books and thus made greater the need

for the imposition of control.


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The Catholic Church's 1559 Congregation of the Index was along list of banned books that hinted of heresy. One of thecensored books was Nicolaus Copernicus's De revolutionibisorbium coelestium (1543), which went beyond what was

permitted in terms of hypothesizing and directly challengedthe Church's belief in a stationary earth. The great scientistGalileo Galilei (15641642) was sentenced to life in prisonbecause he confirmed Copernicus's theories of planetarymotion around the sun. Galileo's sentence was commuted tohouse arrest without visitors only when he knelt before thepope to recant his belief in Copernican theory. Galileo's

punishment, his forced recantation, and the banning of hisbooks had an even greater impact than the censorship of Derevolutionibis in dampening scientific inquiry and discoveryfor a century.


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Until 1694, England had an elaborate system ofLicensing. No publication was allowed without theaccompaniment of a government-granted license. Fiftyyears earlier, at a time of civil war wrotehis pamphlet Areopagitica.

In this work Milton argued forcefully against this formof government censorship and parodied the idea, writing"when as debtors and delinquents may walk abroadwithout a keeper, but inoffensive books must not stirforth without a visible jailer in their title." Although at

the time it did little to halt the practice of licensing, itwould be viewed later a significant milestone as one ofthe most eloquent defenses of press freedom.


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Milton's central argument was that the individual is capableof using reason and distinguishing right from wrong, goodfrom bad. In order to be able to exercise this ration right, theindividual must have unlimited access to the ideas of hisfellow men in a free and open encounter." From Milton'swritings developed the concept of the open market place ofthe idea that when people argue against each other, the goodarguments will prevail. One form of speech that was widelyrestricted in England was Seditious Libel , and laws were in

place that made criticizing the government a crime. The Kingwas above public criticism and statements critical of the

government were forbidden, according to the English Courtof the Star Chamber. Truth was not a defense to seditiouslibel because the goal was to prevent and punish allcondemnation of the government.


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John Stuart Mill approached the problem of authority versusliberty from the viewpoint of a 19th century Utilitarian: Theindividual has the right of expressing himself so long as hedoes not harm other individuals. Mills application of the

general principles of liberty is expressed in his book OnLiberty: "If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, andone, and only one person were of the contrary opinion,mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one

person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified insilencing mankind".

In 1933 Freedom of the Press was suppressed in Germany by

the Reichsteig Fire decree of President Paul VonHindenburg, just as Adolf Hitlar was coming to power. Hitlerlargely suppressed freedom of the press throughJosephGoebbels'Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Goebbelshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Goebbelshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ministry_of_Public_Enlightenment_and_Propagandahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ministry_of_Public_Enlightenment_and_Propagandahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Goebbelshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Goebbels


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The apocalyptic destruction and murder carried out byNazi Germany and other Axis powers caused theinternational community to create new institutions andinstruments after the war to protect human rights andprevent a repeat of the war's atrocities. The UN's first

act was to create the Human Rights Council, chaired byEleanor Roosevelt. For democratic countries, freeexpression was among the primary goals of the newhuman rights regime. Article 19 of the UniversalDeclaration of Human Rights (1948) thus declares:

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion andexpression; this right includes freedom to hold opinionswithout interference and to seek, receive and impartinformation and ideas through any media and


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Later, through the UN General Assembly and UNESCO(the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and CulturalOrganization), the Soviet Union and many developingcountries sought to establish a "New InternationalInformation Order" (NEIO), which would impose

restrictions on the media to avoid unfavorable coverageof their countries. This attempt, among othersundertaken by developing countries, was weakenedwhen Western countries responded with threats to leavethe UN system. Also, by the late 1980s, the main sponsor,

the Soviet Union, was near the point of collapse. Still,there remains no clear mechanism within the UnitedNations human rights system for protecting freeexpression.


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The fights in the UN between developed and developing countries show that the

international struggle for free expression is ongoing, and one that generally sets

democracies apart from dictatorships. Many countries continue to impose censorship and

propaganda regimes, from Burma, to China, to Sudan. A total of 63 countries are

categorized as "not free" in Freedom House's Freedom of the Press 2007 survey. Some,

like Belarus, Cuba, North Korea, and Turkmenistan, go so far as to propagate "cults of

personalities," as occurred in previous totalitarian regimes, where public displays ofadoration of the "leader" were a constant practice. In nationalist conflicts that emerged

after the collapse of communism, the world witnessed another type of crime against

intellectual freedomthe destruction of libraries. Serbian forces destroyed the national

library in Bosnia, and the Russian army did the same in Chechnya, each an apparent

attempt to wipe out national memories.

In the Middle East, some governments seek to disseminate messages against Israel andWestern countries through the state-controlled media, which help to deflect attention

from their domestic problems. A culture of intimidation is prevalent. Religious opinions

(fatwas) are issued by both state (such as theocratic leaders in Iran) and nonstate religious

and political movements (such as al-Qaeda) that sometimes threaten writers or

broadcasters with death or violence for materials deemed blasphemous or insulting to

Muslims. In a world where terrorism has become widespread, these threats place a chill

on all forms of expression, which is, arguably, their aim.


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Even in democracies, controversies still remain on the issue of freedom of expression.Not everyone in the United States agrees fully with the blanket libertarian view of the

First Amendment or Milton's Areopagitica, especially given the increased threat of

terrorism. In the United States, there is, in fact, an ongoing debate between the executive

and judicial branches over the balance between national security and free expression.

Other important debates continue over issues of obscenity, hate speech, political speech,

intellectual property rights, and accountability of the media, among others. But the main threats to freedom of expression are the restrictions placed on it by

repressive governments and the ongoing ideological and physical attacks made on it by

extremists. Dozens of reporters are killed each year by repressive governments and

extremists. Such attacks were given religious encouragement through a fatwa to kill the

novelist Salman Rushdie, issued by the Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989 in

response to Rushdie's novel The Satanic Verses, which the clerics found insulting to

Islam. The fatwah against Rushdie forced him into hiding abroad, although the Iraniangovernment retracted its fatwah in 1998

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