Freedom of the press is not the same as freedom of expression

What is freedom of the press – Martin Hirst

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What is freedom of the press

A quick guide to “freedom” and” unfreedom” in communication theory

A/Prof Martin Hirst,Deakin University, July 2013

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The Orwellian moment

Free speech is about speaking truth to power

Gramsci’s notion of “good sense” NOT “common sense”

Freedom of speech is universal, but it is restricted in many ways Moral restrictions Economic restrictions Political restrictions

This is the Orwellian moment in history. politics, political ideas and ideology are not what they seem and confusion rules.

Where ruling ideas are internally conflicted, as they are put forward in the media and through education, free speech takes on a new dimension.

Ticktin 2009, p. 524)

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Freedom of expression, freedom of speech and freedom of the press

Freedom of expression is a fundamental condition of human existence – it is inherent

Freedom of speech is constrained by social conditions

Freedom of the press exists only for those who own one

The ruling class no longer really needs freedom of speech for subordinate groups

The capitalist press is ‘free’ to publish propaganda

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4

Freedom of expression

Article 19

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

The UN’s 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights

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Freedom of expression is held to be universal.A right that everyone has, regardless of any other condition.


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Article 19

Freedom of expression to be effective must rest on other inalienable human rights

The right to work

Free from violence

No hunger, etc

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.The Universal Declaration of Human Rights

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Freedom of communication: a materialist schema

1. We communicate to survive as a species

2. all class societies exhibit shared dynamics in relation to control of communicative behaviour – favour ruling class

3. capitalist relations of production determine the specific political-economic dynamics and contradictions in communicative behaviour that are overlaid on but not do not wholly displace (1) and (2)

4. Marxism recognises the class interest of the proletariat in relation to freedom of communication, its ideological expressions under capitalism and in relation to developing political consciousness in subordinate classes

(Adapted from Macnair 2009, p. 567)

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Marxism & Freedom of Communication

You can protest all you want, so long as it is ineffective

Media applies ridicule – ‘Occupy’ – ‘keep off the grass’

[C]ommunication is a relation between humans, not the action of an isolated individual. My freedom of communication is impaired if I may write, but may not publish; if I may sing satirical songs, but only in my bath. (Macnair 2009, p. 569)

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Capitalism and freedom of expression

Absolutely agree that freedom of expression is a fundamental human right

It’s all fine in theory, but what about in the real world?

The right to freedom of expression is experienced under social conditions of the class struggle

There is a fundamental class inequality in the application of any universal right enshrined in the UN Declaration of Human Rights

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Materialism and freedom expression

The universality of human rights cannot be expressed within the limits of capitalism

Freedom expression is a ruling class freedom in a class society

The term ‘freedom of expression’ can be understood as the expression of the full potential of the talents and abilities of the individual.

It is clear, that in this sense, it can only be expressed in a socialist society.

It is, in fact, one definition of a socialist society.

(Ticktin 2009, p. 513)

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Communication and accumulation

Scientific labour Discovery and research

Technical labour

Economic exploitation of science

Managerial labour

Command and control

Intellectual labour Reproduction of S/r Ideological labour for

capital

there is a necessary conflict in capitalism between the need for freedom of expression for the purposes of accumulation and the need to maintain control over the same process of accumulation both for the individual capitalist and for the class as a whole.

(Ticktin 2009, p. 516) 30/07/13


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Political economy of free speech

‘the analysis of the various subtle and less subtle political economic forms of control over modes of expression and of criticism within capitalism and of capitalism’ (Ticktin 2009, p. 515).

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Marxism and free speech

The class which has the means of material production at its disposal has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it. (Marx & Engels: The German Ideology)

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Free Speech is a class issue too

The right to assembly

Union access to workplaces

IR

Unfair Work Australia

Strike-breaking

Fascism

Freedom of speech or expression or communication (however you want to call it) is dependent on power, control, resources and access (Macnair 2009).

In a capitalist world all these equations are in fact unequal; there is a ruling class and there are subordinate classes.

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Free speech a revolutionary demand

Emerging bourgeois class demanded free speech so that it could organise itself against autocracy

Needed allies amongst proletarians and allies For a while at least

Marx & Engels both took issue with censorship in their own daily journalism and other writing

Also argued for an independent workers’ press

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15

The bourgeois origins of the free press

Newspapers were critical to the organising of the bourgeois during their revolutions of the 17th & 18th centuries

Editors among the first organic intellectuals of the bourgeoisie

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The French Revolution, the bourgeois revolution, par excellence, placed the question of the rights of man on the agenda.

(Ticktin 2009, p. 516)


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The property franchise still exists

In late capitalist society the right to speak has been expropriated and made beholden, in most cases, to property rights

Commercial in confidence

Trademarking and branding

State rights to secrecy and diplomacy

Cabinet confidentiality

The bourgeoisie needs freedom of expression but it also destroys it in the name of capital itself.

(Ticktin 2009, p. 522)

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Freedom of expression no longer

Need to control accumulation overrides commitment to freedom of expression

Vertical control over media messages to subordinate classes Not just simple ‘manufacture of consent’ The dialectic of the front page

Informed horizontal control to manage its affairs ‘executive committee of the bourgeoisie –

propaganda department

once a ruling class cements its control and firmly grasps the reins of political and economic power, it no longer needs to exert the universality of human rights in practice

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Simple commodity speech

Advertising

Marketing, PR

Sponsorships

Advertorial

Product Placement

Political speech and the ‘permanent campaign’ Naomi Klien ‘shock

doctrine’ Spin and ‘fake news’

A candidate for president of the United States today has to spend tens of millions of dollars a week for more than 52 weeks to have any chance at all of even being one of two rival contenders.

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The unfreedom of the press

Freedom of the press is contradictory in a capitalist society because it is freedom of ownership that relies on the ‘unfreedom’ of those who do not own a press.

Freedom of the press in a capitalist social formation implies and, in fact, depends on, a lack of freedom of communication for the working class.

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No free speech in the news industry

formal democratic structures, institutions and principles in a capitalist society are not enough to guarantee freedom of expression for everyone

a glaring contradiction that is visible to Marxists, but that is generally hidden behind an ideological veil of free speech, or more specifically ‘freedom of the press’

this paper starts from a critical political economy approach to the major news media and commodified news information.

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The social relations of news production

The distinctive feature of capitalist dynamics in relation to communication is the fact that communication itself becomes a sphere of capitalist activity.

(Macnair 2009, p. 574)

The hierarchy of the market comes to be expressed in bourgeois intellectual and cultural institutions.

(Ticktin 2009, p. 526)30/07/13


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The right to publish

Within capitalist relations of production the right to publish information and distribute it freely is tied directly to a property right.

Ownership of the means of news production gives that fraction of capital or ruling class the right to publish

This is a direct translation of the bourgeois property relation to ownership of capital

Freedom of the press is manifestly specific to capitalism and the period of the emergence of capitalism.

(Macnair 2009, p. 568)

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Press freedom is a property right

Freedom of the press has an economic imperative under capitalism

Editorial functions subsumed under commercial functions

Media is interlocked with other forms of capital

“Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one.”

A J Liebling

“The press is not only free, it is powerful. That power is ours. It is the proudest that man can enjoy.”

Benjamin Disraeli30/07/13


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The right to edit

Editors are the senior managers of ideological apparatus on behalf of capital

Well-paid, subject to whim of proprietor or board

All, or at least most, tend to behave in accordance with the requirements of capital

Within the relations of production they perform a managerial and political role on behalf of social capital

Advertising + the feigned editorial independence of a ‘free press’ are the glue that hold it together

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Journalism and the labour process

Newsworkers occupy several discrete and overlapping fractions of the new middle class

The work of journalists at the coal face of producing news and current affairs is proletarianised

Their class location with economic relations of news production aligns them with working class interests (union membership for example)

Their location within the social relations of news production sees a partial alignment with ruling class interests

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Contradictory class positions

News workers – new middle class / petty bourgeois / At top of scale managing

capital interests Directing resources

Economic relationship of wage labour Productive and unproductive

– paid out of circulation At bottom of scale

(proleterianising?)

Social relations of production complicated

The attitudes, doctrines and theories propounded by the capitalist ‘intelligentsia’ reflect their contradictory situation.

(Ticktin 2009, p. 518)

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27Bosses slam media rules

Media reforms proposed by Communications Minister Stephen Conroy

A Public Interest Media Advocate (PIMA)

A ‘public interest’ test for media mergers

A statutory commitment to maintain journalistic standards

Threat of losing a privilege in relation to privacy law

“Australian media bosses have slammed the Gillard government’s wide-ranging changes to media rules, saying a new regulator to oversee print and online news content and a public interest test for mergers are unnecessary and a threat to free speech.”

AFR, 13 March 2013, p.1

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Press tsar to regulate standards

Regulator at ‘arms length’ from government control

Australian Press Council comes out against the legislation

LABOR has infuriated publishers by proposing a new federal regulator to oversee press standards and rule on mergers, as part of a wider overhaul to be rushed through parliament, despite fears it could trigger a $4 billion television takeover.

The Australian, 13 March 2013,p.1

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Free press in the liberal-democratic paradigm

A free press is an essential feature of a healthy liberal democracy.

Media outlets should always feel free to criticise politicians and others in power without any fear of retribution.

James Paterson, 13 March, 2013

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MEAA response to Conroy

‘sweeping, intrusive and fail to respond to changes in our industry

Does not address real concern about attacks on freedom of the press:

‘the growing practice by wealthy Australians attempting to use injunctions, defamation and other court actions to prevent proper journalistic investigations’

Opposed to PIMA, supports industry self-regulation

Does not protect journalists who refuse to divulge sources in line with the Code of Ethics

Does not protect whistleblowers

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Freedom of the press in Britain is freedom to print such of the proprietor's prejudices as the advertiser's won't object to

Helen Swaffer

There are laws to protect the freedom of the press's speech, but none that are worth anything to protect the people from the press

Mark Twain

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Freedom of the press is not the same as freedom of expression

Education

Transcript of Freedom of the press is not the same as freedom of expression