CENSORSHIP AND THE REGULATION OF EXPRESSIONpolitical theory, Habermas (1989) considers the
demise of systematic statecensorship to be a pre-
condition of the rise of a ‘‘public sphere,’’ an
admittedly idealized realm of discourse—indepen-
dent of both state and market—in which public
issues can be deliberated in an environment where
reason, not the status of speakers is honored.
THE RHETORIC OF ‘‘CENSORSHIP’’The use of language plays a critical role in framing
thought and discussion about the legitimate con-
trol of speech. The term ‘‘censorship’’ most fre-
quently arises in debates over the desirability of
restricting access to one or another form of com-
municative content. However, the term is fraught
with the complexities of multiple meanings, uses,
and understandings. These complexities arise from
the historical baggage it carries, the multiple con-
texts—popular, legal, and scholarly—in which it is
used, and the highly contested nature of the de-
bates in which it is invoked. Although systematic
empirical analyses of the term have yet to be
conducted, its meanings appear to differ along
two dimensions, connotative and descriptive. Un-
derlying the connotative force of the term is the
strong conviction that suppression of speech is at
best a necessary evil. As such, the term typically
carries with it a highly pejorative connotation and
a strong air of illegitimacy. Although First Amend-
ment scholar Smolla (1991) informs us that ‘‘cen-
sorship was not always a dirty word,’’ this facet of
the term is now found in Webster’s Dictionary,
which states that it refers especially to control that
is ‘‘exercised repressively.’’
Descriptive uses of the term differ according
to the breadth of the domain covered. Under strict
uses of the term, censorship means the prior re-
straint of information by government. It is this
meaning that enables the Federal Communica-
tions Commission (FCC) to enact regulations that
impose post hoc penalties for some forms of speech
while at the same time declaring that ‘‘nothing in
the Act [that governs the FCC] shall be... con-
strued to give the Commission the power of cen-
sorship.’’ In a second form of use, censorship
refers to any form of government regulations that
restrict or disable speech. Fines imposed by the
FCC for ‘‘indecent’’ speech on radio fit this use, as
the intent is to deter further indecency. In a third,
less conventional usage, the term is modified to
refer to nongovernmental restrictions on speech.
For example, in one of the few instances in which
the Supreme Court has applied the term to private
concerns (Red Lion v. FCC, 395 U.S. 367, 1969), the
Court stated that ‘‘The First Amendment does not
protect private censorship by broadcasters who
are licensed by the Government to use a scarce
resource which is denied to others.’’
In each of these three descriptive domains the
term ‘‘censorship’’ almost invariably carries its
pejorative inflection. In its broadest sense, censor-
ship signifies control over the means of expres-
sion; the determination of what content will not be
communicated. This sense of the term is found in
the work of Bourdieu (1991), for whom censor-
ship is located not only in explicit prohibitions, but
also in the everyday practices and power relation-
ships that determine what is and is not said. It
includes not only the sixteenth-century Inquisitor
who decides which books will be burned, but also
the twentieth-century film editor who leaves a
scene on the cutting room floor. It includes both
the intentional actions of individuals and, as im-
portantly, the de facto results of impersonal forces
that lead some ideas not to be expressed. This
expansive meaning, which has yet to make signifi-
cant inroads into popular discourse, is incompat-
ible with the pejorative connotation found in eve-
ryday usage: If censorship is an integral part of
everyday life, it cannot always, or even typical-
ly, be evil.The prototypical understanding of ‘‘censor-
ship’’ is firmly anchored at the point where the
term’s pejorative connotation intersects with gov-
ernmental restrictions on speech. This can be seen
in how the term is and is not used in legal and
popular discourse. First, there are numerous forms
of government restrictions that tend not to be
thought of as censorship at all. Examples include
punishment for perjury, threats, and libel, and
prohibitions on misleading advertising. The core
meaning of the term ‘‘censorship’’ tends to be
applied to restrictions that are consensually deemed
to be illegitimate; it tends not to be applied to
restrictions that are consensually deemed to be
legitimate, although they fall within the descrip-
tive scope of the term. As such, the term typically
serves to label those policies and actions that have
been deemed undesirable rather than to describe
a set of activities whose legitimacy could then be
judged. A thorough sociological understanding of