FIRST AMENDMENT STUDIES seeking essays on digital media’s effects

FIRST AMENDMENT STUDIES seeking essays on digital media’s effects

At the recent ECA conference there was a fascinating panel that looked at how digital media might alter the way we view traditional First Amendment concepts.   A proposed special issue (or special section) of the journal might be devoted to the topic, and we invite all CRTNET subscribers to consider if they are “sitting on” an essay that might find a home with us.

One of the panelists from ECA is looking at how digital media invite us to re-think Mill’s notion from “On Liberty” about how it is in all of our interests not to censor new ideas.  Where Mill was talking about not punishing heretics, the digital world, where so many folks live in “bubble” communities of “newsfeed” only devoted to viewpoints they already embrace, seems to demand that we view “popping the bubble” as a First Amendment (or at least ethical) imperative.

CRTNET subscribers might consider other ways in which digital media invite us to re-think traditional Free Speech concepts.  For example, what does it mean to be a “public figure” online only (which, of course, has implications for libel law)?   If anonymous online postings tend to attract more coarse discourse than did older media, is the bar raised on what kinds of messages are seen to be “unconscionable” (which would be highly relevant to Public Disclosure privacy suits)?  Clearly digital media and the ease of reproducibility (and new norms concerning what is “original?”) have implications for copyright and trademark law.

The examples used here should indicate that your essay would not need to be the first of its kind; it could cover “well-trod” avenues, where there already is much of a literature, as long as you find some new “hook” or emphasis.

For more information, contact FAS editor Paul Siegel [PSiegel@hartford.edu].  To maximize the chances of appearing in the very next issue of FAS, completed essays should be received by August 1.  Detailed instructions for submissions to FAS can be found at:  http://www.tandfonline.com/action/authorSubmission?show=instructions&journalCode=rfsy20