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American society was shaped by individuals who spoke the truth supported by the First Amendment. The First Amendment applies to every citizen and person living in America. You have the freedom to practice religion, speak opinion, gather with others, raise issues to the government, and consume news media. As American society evolves, the First Amendment is updated to support freedom of expression.
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By partaking in media literacy and contributing to the global narrative we can all build bridges instead of walls. At Media Smart Citizens, our values center around this ideal and allow us to build upon our shared interest in the advancement of media and information literacy.
ACCESSIBLE EDUCATION
We believe in providing the tools to empower everyone to grow and learn. In conjunction with community centers and libraries, we are working to make our programs accessible to everyone within communities. Our goal is to foster community spirit empowering everyone in the belief that “Knowledge is Power.”
Freedom of Speech by
The essays in this volume portrays the public debates concerning freedom of speech in the 18th century in France and Britain as well as Austria, Denmark, Russia, and Spain and its American territories. The economic integration of Europe and its offshoots over the past three centuries into a distinctive cultural product, 'the West, ' has given rise to a triumphant universalist narrative that masks these disparate national contributions to freedom of speech and other liberal rights.
Freedom of Speech and Expression by
This is the second volume of the new Rutgers Lectures in Philosophy series, which publishes lectures of prominent intellectuals and philosophers delivered annually on the Rutgers New Brunswick campus.Sir Richard Sorabji here examines free speech through a historical lens from antiquity up to today. He first traces the concept's origins in ancient India, Rome, and Greece, and follows its evolution through early Christian, medieval, and Arabic philosophy. He then evaluates historical threats tofree speech in literary, political, and religious contexts, and various legal constraints that have attempted to protect it. He discusses the tension between the benefits of free speech and its frustations and abuses, and argues for the use of voluntary self-restraint on such speech that frustratesits benefits, citing for example the art identified by Gandhi as "opening ears." Finally, he closes with an analysis of free speech on social media and the abuse of personal data and voter manipulation.With Freedom of Speech and Expression, Sorabji provides a comprehensive overview of the topic informed by his distinct philosophical analysis and perceptive commentary.
The Revolution in Freedoms of Press and Speech by
This book discusses the revolutionary broadening of concepts of freedom of press and freedom of speech in Great Britain and in America in the late eighteenth century, in the period that produced state declarations of rights and then the First Amendment and Fox's Libel Act.The conventional view of the history of freedoms of press and speech is that the common law since antiquity defined those freedoms narrowly, and that Sir William Blackstone in 1769, and Lord Chief Justice Mansfield in 1770, faithfully summarized the common law in giving a very narrow definition ofthose freedoms as mere liberty from prior restraint and not liberty from punishment after something was printed or spoken.This book proposes, to the contrary, that Blackstone carefully selected the narrowest definition that had been suggested in popular essays in the prior seventy years, in order to oppose the growing claims for much broader protections of press and speech. Blackstone misdescribed his summary as anaccepted common law definition, which in fact did not exist. A year later, Mansfield inserted a similar definition into the common law for the first time, also misdescribing it as a long-accepted definition, and soon misdescribed the unique rules for prosecuting sedition as having an equally ancientpedigree. Blackstone and Mansfield were not declaring the law as it had long been, but were leading a counter-revolution about the breadth of freedoms of press and speech, and cloaking it as a summary of a narrow common law doctrine that in fact was nonexistent.That conflict of revolutionary view and counter-revolutionary view continues today. For over a century, a neo-Blackstonian view has been dominant, or at least very influential, among historians. Contrary to those narrow claims, this book concludes that the broad understanding of freedoms of pressand speech was the dominant context of the First Amendment and of Fox's Libel Act, and that it enjoyed greater historical support.
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