Madison or Madison Avenue?: corporate challenges facing the liberal protection of free speech and personal autonomy in the mass media
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2004
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Abstract
This thesis explores whether laissez-faire regulation of the content of mass media communications protects the sort of free speech required for liberal democratic government. I argue that policies derived from traditional interpretations of liberal theory, which favour barring state activism, no longer protect the dissemination of a plurality of views. I examine the legal concept of corporate personhood as connected to free speech and argue that it is inappropriate in itself, and damaging to liberal democracy in its consequences. I also argue that the content of speech stemming from laissez-faire regulatory policies inhibits autonomy, understood as a capacity and condition. My argument shows that state non-intervention in the regulation of the content of speech does not promote the goals which some proponents of this approach claim are advanced, and there is reason to seek new ways to promote liberal freedom of speech.
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Bibliography: p. 107-110
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Hughes, S. R. (2004). Madison or Madison Avenue?: corporate challenges facing the liberal protection of free speech and personal autonomy in the mass media (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca. doi:10.11575/PRISM/19518