Defensive communication
Terrorism Protection Act, and the US House of
Representatives launched a similar bill, the Free
Speech Protection Act (2009).
Th e incoming UK coalition government (2010)
recognized the archaic and punitive nature of
existing defamation law and set in motion a new
Defamation Bill in March 2011. Justice Minister
Kenneth Clarke promised that new legislation
would ‘ensure that anyone who makes a state-
ment of fact or expresses an honest opinion can
do so with confi dence’, a key element being the
introduction of a public interest defence. Th e
Libel Reform Campaign deemed the proposals
to be ‘a great starting point’ but urged parliament
to go further in key areas. See censorship;
super-injunction; surveillance society.
Also, see topic guide under media: freedom,
censorship.
Defensive communication Occurs when
people hear what they do not wish to hear.
dissonance arises when messages cut across,
or contradict, values and assumptions; the
reaction varies from not concentrating on the
message to deliberately misrepresenting or
misunderstanding the sender’s motive as well as
his/her message.
Climates of threat create defensive tactics,
just as supportive climates help reduce them. If
we know that we are being tested or evaluated,
for example, our communication response will
be guarded. Equally we might resort to defen-
sive tactics if we feel the communicator of the
message is intent on winning control, exerting
superiority. We are less defensive in situations
in which spontaneity, empathy, equality and a
sense of open-mindedness about the nature of
the message are predominant.
Deference, culture of See culture of defer-
ence.
Deliberative listening See listening.
Democracy and the media Both the word
democracy and the idea are of Greek origin.
Demos means citizen body; thus democracy is
rule by the citizens, suggesting the right of all
to decide on what are matters of concern, and
possessing the power to decide on those matters.
Democracy implies a vote for every citizen of a
certain age, regular elections, a genuine choice of
parties to represent citizens, and a range of rights- free speech, security from arbitrary arrest, the
freedoms of belief, movement and association.
Th e media can be seen – and they often see
themselves – as watchdogs of democracy;
journalists as articulators and defenders of
democracy, the eyes and ears of the public. In his
analysis of whether new technologies, in partic-
equally to transmissions on the Internet which,
while representing a massive challenge in terms
of monitoring, also opens up the communicative
exchanges of individual Net users, bloggers, chat
rooms, newsgroups, etc. to surveillance, not only
in home countries but globally.
Prior to the Defamation Bill of 2011 it was
illegal not only to communicate potentially
defamatory material, but also to republish it. As
well as the originator of the material, the website
owner and the Internet Service Provider (ISP)
have been liable. Th e culture of the Internet in its
pioneering days was one which celebrated inde-
pendence and free speech; insults, or ‘fl aming’,
between Net users was commonplace.
This culture has changed since cyberspace
expanded to include young people and corporate
involvement, the one requiring a degree of
protection from defamatory language, the other
sensitive about preserving the good name of the
company or corporation. The first corporate
e-mail libel case in the UK was fi led in 1997.
A report by English PEN and Index on Censor-
ship magazine, Free Speech Is Not For Sale
(2009), talked of ‘an intimidating complexity
of English libel law’ and argued that it ‘has
served to discourage critical media reporting
on matters of serious public interest, adversely
aff ecting the ability of scholars and journalists
to publish their work’. Th e report asserted that
‘the law was designed to protect the rich and
powerful, and does not reflect the interests
of modern democratic society’, and made ten
recommendations, including the case for except-
ing ‘interactive online services and interactivity
chat from liability’.
What has been termed libel tourism has
concerned the way that the UK, world famous
for its repressive libel laws and sky-high fi nes- Oxford University research has found that
defending a libel case in the England and Wales
is 140 times the European average – has become
the place to launch a libel suit. Indeed, London
has been named ‘the town named sue’.
A case in point involved a book, Funding Evil,
published in New York by Rachel Ehrenfeld:
she and her publishers were sued in London
by a named Saudi-Arabian businessman, even
though only twenty-three copies of the book
were located in the UK. The court awarded
130,000 damages to the businessman.
This case, referred to as Rachel’s Law,
prompted a number of states in America to pass
legislation protecting American citizens against
the consequences of such foreign rulings. In
2008 the New York Assembly passed the Libel