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The digital citizen as technoliberal subject: The politics of constitutive rhetoric in the European Union’s Digital Decade First Amendment Studies Pub Date : 2024-08-18 Jonathan Bridenbaker
Published on January 26, 2022, the European Declaration of Digital Rights and Principles (EDDRP) enshrined the European Union’s goals for Europe’s digital future, a document representing the policy...
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The Supreme Court’s rhetorical construction of home First Amendment Studies Pub Date : 2024-06-20 Craig R. Smith
After the Bill of Rights was added to the Constitution, the justices of the Supreme Court began to construct denotative, connotative, and metaphorical notions of “home” that flow from the First, Se...
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Leveraging experiential learning to increase undergraduate students’ advocacy skills and political efficacy First Amendment Studies Pub Date : 2024-05-17 Brandon W Lenoir, Abby Van Metre
Experiential learning is an approach to teaching that emphasizes hands-on experiences that provide students with an opportunity to synthesize the concepts and theories they have learned in a natura...
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On the censoring of Dr. Ahlam Muhtaseb First Amendment Studies Pub Date : 2024-03-26 Billie Murray
Published in Communication and Democracy (Vol. 58, No. 1, 2024)
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An accounting from Dr. Ahlam Muhtaseb First Amendment Studies Pub Date : 2024-03-26 Ahlam Muhtaseb
Published in Communication and Democracy (Vol. 58, No. 1, 2024)
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The rhetoric of democracy in United States Senate campaign debates First Amendment Studies Pub Date : 2024-03-18 Josh C. Bramlett, Joel Lansing Reed, Mitchell S. McKinney
This project analyzes the rhetoric of democracy, voting, and elections in United States Senate campaign debates during the 2022 midterm elections. Using C-SPAN video archives, we examine candidate ...
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“The man who has money is king”: Discursive constructions of affluent domination of US politics in letters-to-the-editor, 1948–2016 First Amendment Studies Pub Date : 2023-12-19 Dakota Park-Ozee
Scholarly and popular publications alike are rife with accusations and evidence of the wealthy’s outsized influence on US politics. The rich can vote more easily, have greater sway over policy, and...
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The power of names: The neoliberal imaginary in education policyspeak First Amendment Studies Pub Date : 2023-12-04 Kerry Ann McKeon
During her time as US Education Secretary (2017–2020), Betsy DeVos deployed specific naming practices in her speeches and public statements in service of a neoliberal educational agenda. Using disc...
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Social media, freedom of speech, and the future of our democracy First Amendment Studies Pub Date : 2023-11-30 Juliet Dee
Published in Communication and Democracy (Vol. 58, No. 1, 2024)
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Kyrie Irving, vaccine hesitancy, and the politics of rugged individualism First Amendment Studies Pub Date : 2023-11-25 Olivia S. Gellar, Michael L. Butterworth
NBA superstar Kyrie Irving has a well-earned reputation for both his elite talent and his unpredictable public commentary. Such expressions have included references to the Earth being flat, advocac...
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Design of X’s platform masks discontent with presidential social media posts instead of reflecting public opinion First Amendment Studies Pub Date : 2023-11-17 Kara Alaimo
This study calls into question the notion that X (previously known as Twitter) serves as an effective global “town square” for political debates. An analysis of replies to the posts of former U.S. ...
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Multimodal rhetorics in the gun debate: Encouraging youth agency in March for Our Lives’ “The Most Vicious Cycle” First Amendment Studies Pub Date : 2023-11-17 Gabriela Tscholl
In October 2018, March For Our Lives (MFOL) released “The Most Vicious Cycle,” a music video designed to mobilize collective agency among youth voters in the midterm election. The video, which feat...
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Weathering and weaponizing the #TwitterPurge: Digital content moderation and the dimensions of deplatforming First Amendment Studies Pub Date : 2023-10-19 Sebastiaan Gorissen
Since 2016, news outlets across the political spectrum have increased coverage of social media content moderation and given the term “deplatforming” unprecedented mainstream prominence. This discou...
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Nudges, emojis, and memes: Mapping interpassivity theory onto digital civic culture First Amendment Studies Pub Date : 2023-09-13 Lukas Mozdeika
Once lauded for liberating audiences from their passive state by granting voice, the digital public sphere today increasingly resembles a cacophony of disjointed voices datafied for the gain of gia...
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“Is this real? Or has this been happening inside my head?” The Wizarding World of Harry Potter as a constructed site of (artificial) collective memory, identity, and resistance First Amendment Studies Pub Date : 2023-09-04 Christopher J. Wernecke, Virginia Massignan
This essay positions the “magic” of The Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Orlando, Florida as residing at the distinctive confluence of multimodal rhetorics, memory, and fandom identity, with rami...
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When freedom speaks: The boundaries and boundlessness of our First Amendment right First Amendment Studies Pub Date : 2023-08-11 T. Jake Dionne
Published in Communication and Democracy (Vol. 57, No. 2, 2023)
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A Handmaid’s Tale: Amy Coney Barrett, originalism, and the specter of religion First Amendment Studies Pub Date : 2023-07-10 Calvin R. Coker, Joel L. Reed
In this essay, we analyze the Supreme Court confirmation hearings of Amy Coney Barrett to identify and explain the interaction between religion and jurisprudential philosophy. By tracing rhetorical...
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Reactive Memories of 1776 First Amendment Studies Pub Date : 2023-06-15 Patricia Davis, Richard Branscomb
In this article, we situate the riot at the United States Capitol building on January 6, 2021, within the longer history of white-led race riots in the United States, as both state and vigilante ac...
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Whatever happened to propaganda? Communication curricula in Spain, democracy, and the logic of depropagandization First Amendment Studies Pub Date : 2023-05-31 Antonio Pineda, Ana I. Barragán-Romero, Bianca Sánchez-Gutiérrez, Antonio Macarro-Tomillo
The term “propaganda” has gradually vanished from communication studies and has been substituted with a plethora of euphemisms. This relates to the notion of “depropagandization,” that is, the disa...
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Editorial introduction First Amendment Studies Pub Date : 2023-05-29 Billie Murray
Published in Communication and Democracy (Vol. 57, No. 1, 2023)
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Nazis in Skokie: Tolerance, democracy, and the deliberative sense of the community First Amendment Studies Pub Date : 2023-05-10 Cary Federman
ABSTRACT Empirical studies of tolerance have drawn three conclusions about tolerance, speech, and democracy: (1) that tolerance is one of the most important attributes of democracy; (2) that all groups should be tolerated, but not all activities; and (3) that elites are more willing than non-elites to tolerate extremist speech. In 1977, Skokie, Illinois revealed the conflict these conclusions elide
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Meta-deliberation about congressional town hall meetings: A rhetorical analysis First Amendment Studies Pub Date : 2023-04-27 John Rountree
ABSTRACT Congressional town hall meetings are prominent political forums in the United States where constituents and members of Congress publicly converse on exigent policy issues, but they have seldom received scholarly attention. This study analyzes one aspect of congressional town halls: their contested meanings in public discourse. I conduct a rhetorical analysis of congressional town hall “meta-deliberation”
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Deflecting deliberation through rhetorical nihilism: “Stop the Steal” as an unethical and intransigent rival public First Amendment Studies Pub Date : 2023-04-18 Thomas A. Salek
ABSTRACT In the weeks after the 2020 presidential race, Donald Trump and his supporters used Stop the Steal rhetoric to suggest that the election was stolen from the 45th president. I argue that Stop the Steal highlights the existence of a rival public, an alternative discourse community that deflected deliberation by refusing to engage in a debate with other publics and counterpublics. To constitute
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Abstructing AOC: Reifying the reactionary rhetoric of patriarchal ideology First Amendment Studies Pub Date : 2023-04-09 Joshua Guitar, Madeline Studebaker
ABSTRACT Few US representatives have captivated the public forum like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, known popularly as AOC. While not to discount authentic support for Ocasio-Cortez, conservative pundits and politicians account for most of the mentions of “AOC” in news discourse. These utterances often operate more as rhetorical manifestations of ideology than as referents to Ocasio-Cortez. Through abstruction
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Engagement with incivility in tweets from and directed at local elected officials First Amendment Studies Pub Date : 2023-04-01 Stephen A. Rains, Kate Kenski, Leah Dajches, Kaylin Duncan, Kun Yan, Yejin Shin, Jules L. Barbati, Steven Bethard, Kevin Coe, Yotam Shmargad
ABSTRACT Although social media have created novel opportunities for the public and local elected officials representing city or state governments to interact, concerns have been raised about the tenor of their discourse. We used machine learning in this project to identify the presence of incivility in tweets (N = 38,218) made by and directed at local officials representing a metropolitan area over
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“Mask up. Pony up. Vote.” Examining university e-mails surrounding the 2020 US elections First Amendment Studies Pub Date : 2023-02-27 Lindsey Meeks
ABSTRACT The climate surrounding the 2020 US elections was tumultuous – from the hyperpartisan elections themselves, to a pandemic, to a national reckoning on race. Within this turmoil, many college students were casting their first vote. With the health of the nation on the line, figuratively and literally, what guidance did universities offer students in the run up to the election? This study addresses
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Trump’s hateful rhetoric and First Amendment failures: Re-envisioning incitement, true threats, and hate speech First Amendment Studies Pub Date : 2022-11-12 Chris Demaske
ABSTRACT Donald Trump’s hate-filled rhetoric while in office emphasizes long-existing shortcomings of free speech doctrine dealing with various forms of threatening speech. More so, because of his elected position during those speech moments, his speech elevates those concerns to a new level. His disregard for civil discourse has opened the door for a new speech behavior in national politics, one where
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A tragic intersection in Saint Louis, Missouri: Communication, protest, property, and guns First Amendment Studies Pub Date : 2022-11-12 L. Shelley Rawlins
ABSTRACT On June 28, 2020, St. Louis “Expect Us” racial justice protesters marching to their mayor’s front door encountered Mark and Patricia McCloskey aiming guns at them as they walked past the couple’s mansion on a private road. A clash of “rights” erupted in this situation when viewed through the opposing participants’ lenses. On one hand, two persons pulled guns on unarmed protesters that they
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I’m not going to have a conversation with you: Linguistic refusals of 1st Amendment YouTube auditors during police interactions First Amendment Studies Pub Date : 2022-11-12 James Perez
ABSTRACT This article examines the opening linguistic interactions between police officers and First Amendment auditors. First Amendment auditing is a relatively new movement in which individuals visit government-funded entities, such as a police department, and then videotape the encounter with the public officials. The vast majority of these auditors are individuals working independently, or citizen
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Living photography and anamorphosis as equipment for public dying in a pandemic First Amendment Studies Pub Date : 2022-11-12 Jessy J. Ohl
ABSTRACT This essay consists of a critical and creative encounter with WWI visual propagandist Arthur Mole’s “living photography,” a technique to create images by configuring thousands of subjects to form silhouettes of culturally relevant symbols only discernable from an elevated vantage point. I argue that Mole’s visual rhetoric offers important equipment for public dying, which in this case refers
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The marketplace of ideas post-Charlottesville First Amendment Studies Pub Date : 2022-11-12 Kim Zarkin
Published in Communication and Democracy (Vol. 56, No. 2, 2022)
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The marketplace of ideas, cancel culture, and misunderstanding the First Amendment First Amendment Studies Pub Date : 2022-11-12 Robert Spicer
Published in Communication and Democracy (Vol. 56, No. 2, 2022)
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The anti-democratic consequences of the “More-Speech” system First Amendment Studies Pub Date : 2022-11-12 Billie Murray
Published in Communication and Democracy (Vol. 56, No. 2, 2022)
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At stake in the rules of communication is democratic life itself: Does “the marketplace of ideas” matter anymore? First Amendment Studies Pub Date : 2022-11-12 Kevin Johnson
Published in Communication and Democracy (Vol. 56, No. 2, 2022)
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Concluding remarks First Amendment Studies Pub Date : 2022-11-12 Kim Zarkin
Published in Communication and Democracy (Vol. 56, No. 2, 2022)
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Tracking the rhetorical legacy of Donald Trump First Amendment Studies Pub Date : 2022-11-12 Nicole Tanquary
Published in Communication and Democracy (Vol. 56, No. 2, 2022)
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How machines came to speak: media technologies and freedom of speech First Amendment Studies Pub Date : 2022-11-12 John Nerone
Published in Communication and Democracy (Vol. 56, No. 2, 2022)
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Tending the nurseries of democracy: Mahanoy Area School District v. B.L. and the future of student speech rights First Amendment Studies Pub Date : 2022-04-20 Dale A. Herbeck
ABSTRACT In Mahanoy Area School District v. B.L. (2021), the Supreme Court held a public school could not discipline a student for posting offensive snaps about her cheer team on social media. In an 8-to-1 decision siding with the student, the Justices reaffirmed Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District (1969), a landmark decision by the Warren Court that extended speech rights to
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Un/civil demonstrators: Race and civility politics in the 1917 Silent Protest Parade First Amendment Studies Pub Date : 2022-04-15 Wallace S. Golding
ABSTRACT This essay uses the case of the 1917 Silent Protest Parade, notable for its early example of organized activism by the NAACP, to argue for a turn away from an either-or understanding of civility and incivility and toward a both-and understanding of the terms, which I term in/civility. Such a shift entails thinking of the terms not as opposites but as entangled resources for rhetorical invention
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Originalism and the Second Amendment: A reassessment First Amendment Studies Pub Date : 2022-03-07 Craig R. Smith
ABSTRACT This article argues that the precept of original meaning is a valid hermeneutic method employed by both the majority and minority in the Supreme Court’s ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller, a landmark decision that diminishes the precedents preceding it. After tracing the evolution of the precept of original meaning back to James Madison, who wrote the Second Amendment, this article demonstrates
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Navigating a doctrinal grey area: Free speech, the right to read, and schools First Amendment Studies Pub Date : 2021-10-06 Richard S. Price
ABSTRACT Every year thousands of people challenge the contents of libraries and school curriculum. The exact number of these complaints is impossible to measure and most are likely verbal in nature and handled informally. Some, however, explode into public view. This article explores two battles in New Jersey over Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel. In a dispute that began via email, emerged
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Protesting with guns and conflating the First and Second Amendments: The case of the Bundys First Amendment Studies Pub Date : 2021-09-22 Amy Pason, Patrick File
ABSTRACT This article analyzes the legal discourse surrounding two armed anti-government confrontations – at Bunkerville, Nevada, in 2014, and the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon in 2016 – to understand how the public makes sense of the relationship between First and Second Amendment rights. Using the concept of non-judicial precedents and drawing on legal scholarship following District
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Varieties of censorship: Hate speech, pornography, and the First Amendment First Amendment Studies Pub Date : 2021-09-12 Cary Federman
ABSTRACT Until the 1960s, governmental limits on speech and expression, particularly around issues of pornography and obscenity, were common. These restrictions were enacted to reinforce a set of standards that had broad support among the American people. Since the 1960s, we have seen a great expansion of the right to free speech and expression. Today, however, the libertarian consensus has fractured
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Fighting back: Is defamation law a double-edged sword for #MeToo victims? First Amendment Studies Pub Date : 2021-11-04 Juliet Dee
ABSTRACT During the past half-century, countless women have been victims of sexual harassment, groping, and rape. When the #MeToo Movement gained momentum in October 2017, women who had victimized began to speak out. If women who were victims of sexual predators had not originally reported being raped but came forward as part of the #MeToo movement two or three decades later and the perpetrators denied
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Libel laws and the non-institutional press First Amendment Studies Pub Date : 2021-11-06 Sharon Docter
ABSTRACT This paper will argue that non-institutional media such as bloggers should be accorded the same First Amendment protection as institutional media under libel laws. Supreme Court precedent supports making no distinction between the institutional and non-institutional media. The status of the plaintiff is relevant in libel actions, not the status of the defendant. Moreover, when bloggers disseminate
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Opting in: Free expression statements at private universities and colleges in the US First Amendment Studies Pub Date : 2021-04-21 Erica R. Salkin, Colin Messke
ABSTRACT While all colleges and universities are challenged by questions about free expression in the current environment, private higher educational institutions do so without the constitutional mandate of their public counterparts. Some private colleges and universities have sought to independently affirm their commitment to free speech through statements of principle or purpose. This study explores
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Using think-alouds to understand how students balance free speech and inclusion First Amendment Studies Pub Date : 2021-04-14 Jeffrey L. Bernstein, Cameron W. Armstrong
ABSTRACT We explore student attitudes toward freedom of speech on campus using a think-aloud method, in which students are exposed to source material on a subject and “think aloud” as they work through the controversies. We gain an in-depth picture of how students understand and make judgments about who should and should not be allowed to speak on campus. Utilizing the think-aloud method to examine
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Clear and present danger standard 100th anniversary: Examining Donald J. Trump’s “presidential” rhetoric as a clear and present danger First Amendment Studies Pub Date : 2021-04-14 Edward C. Brewer, Chrys Egan
ABSTRACT For the past 100 years, the Supreme Court ruling in the case of Schenck v. United States, 249 U.S. 47, from 1919 has stood as a landmark case due to the Court’s creation of a “Clear and Present Danger” standard of freedom of speech. Through the vehicle of the Clear and Present Danger measure, the Court reconsidered that the degree of freedom for inflammatory rhetoric could be legally permissible
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Whiteness, repressive victimhood, and the foil of the intolerant left First Amendment Studies Pub Date : 2021-04-14 Casey Ryan Kelly
ABSTRACT This essay argues that recent controversies over conservative speakers on college campuses are an opaque vehicle for White supremacy. Revisiting Herbert Marcuse’s concept of repressive tolerance through the lens of Critical Race Theory, this essay sketches the features of repressive victimhood: the advancement of categorical minority status orchestrated to shield white people from charges
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The free speech century First Amendment Studies Pub Date : 2021-05-27 Joseph Sery
(2021). The free speech century. First Amendment Studies: Vol. 55, No. 1, pp. 77-78.
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Locating freedom of speech in an era of global white nationalism First Amendment Studies Pub Date : 2021-03-01 Anjali Vats, Mohan J. Dutta
(2020). Locating freedom of speech in an era of global white nationalism. First Amendment Studies: Vol. 54, Special Issue: Free Speech, Race, and Coloniality, pp. 156-180.
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Free speech and loss in white nationalist rhetoric First Amendment Studies Pub Date : 2021-03-01 E. Chebrolu
ABSTRACT This article analyses how anti-blackness structures the desire for free speech within white nationalist ideology. The essay traces the linkages between the rhetoric of a mission statement for a white nationalist webzine edited by a professor of psychology and that professor’s published academic work on ethnic identity. The central argument of the essay is that taken together, these texts construct
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The neo-colonized entity: Examining the ongoing significance of colonialism on free speech in Singapore First Amendment Studies Pub Date : 2021-03-01 Sangeetha Thanapal
ABSTRACT This paper examines the use of colonial era laws to restrict free speech in Singapore, along with more recent laws that are meant to stifle criticism of the state. It draws a link between current statutes and colonial laws, showing that two of the fundamental decrees restricting free speech in Singapore originated from British colonialism. It concludes by pointing out that free speech does
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Hindu nationalism and media violence in news discourses in India First Amendment Studies Pub Date : 2021-03-01 Ashwini Falnikar
ABSTRACT The mainstream media and communication discourses in India in the present times engender ‘media violence’ embedded in the dominant productions of ‘Hinduism’ together with aspirations for neoliberal development. The media violence engenders indigenous forms of racism and colonialism. This article attempts to examine the nature of these productions through critical theories of postcoloniality
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Free Speech v. Free Blacks: Racist policing and calls to harm First Amendment Studies Pub Date : 2020-12-07 Annie Hill
ABSTRACT In 2018, mobile phone videos went viral of white people calling police to report Black people for engaging in innocuous conduct. Dubbed “white caller crime” by some commentators, mainstream and social media afforded serious and satiric attention to racist harassment via police calls. In this article, I analyze these police calls as a form of racist expression that operates as a call to harm
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On the evolution and definition of ‘First Amendment studies’: Do we all engage in First Amendment studies? First Amendment Studies Pub Date : 2020-11-17 Kevin A. Johnson
(2020). On the evolution and definition of ‘First Amendment studies’: Do we all engage in First Amendment studies? First Amendment Studies: Vol. 54, Special Issue: Free Speech, Race, and Coloniality, pp. 149-155.
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Hate speech as a structural phenomenon First Amendment Studies Pub Date : 2020-11-16 Caitlin Ring Carlson
ABSTRACT Hate speech is more than just expression used to malign people based on their fixed identity characteristics. It is a tool deployed by those with various forms of power to maintain their social, political, or economic dominance. It puts its victims in a subordinate position, which makes equality all but impossible. Therefore, we must reconsider the near absolute protection afforded to hate
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Problems with a statement First Amendment Studies Pub Date : 2020-11-15 Amardo Rodriguez
ABSTRACT In this paper, I look critically at a recent statement put out by NCA’s Executive Committee on hate speech. Rather than promoting diversity and civility, I contend that this statement distorts and diminishes our understanding of communication, ultimately impeding the rise of new diversities and possibilities.
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Stifled by freedom of expression: The “Statue of a Girl of Peace” and the legacy of colonialism and historical revisionism in Japan First Amendment Studies Pub Date : 2020-11-15 Soo-Hye Han
ABSTRACT This essay provides a closer look at the controversy over the shutdown of an art exhibit titled “After ‘Freedom of Expression?’” at the 2019 Aichi Triennale in Japan. While heated debates over freedom of expression ensued following its closure, larger structural issues underpinning the incident and the “Statue of a Girl of Peace,” an artwork symbolizing the victims of sexual slavery by the
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Contesting the place of protest in migrant caravans First Amendment Studies Pub Date : 2020-11-15 Margaret Franz
ABSTRACT Restrictions on assembly, all of which disproportionately target Black, Indigenous, and People of Color, demonstrate that the freedom to assemble depends on state-defined temporal, behavioral, and spatial boundaries of political practice. This essay analyzes how the migrant caravans organized by Pueblo Sin Fronteras (PSF) push against the state-derived boundaries on assembly. Specifically