CENSORSHIP AND THE REGULATION OF EXPRESSIONmaterials, but also on the ultimate availability of
the labeled content. If parents use advisory labels
to preselect their children’s television viewing
choices, these labels will effectively place greater
selective control in the hands of parents. The
probability that parents will do so is heightened by
technologies like the ‘‘V-chip,’’ through which pa-
rental choices can be automated. Similar labels
may have a much different effect on the selection
of music and video games, where children are
more likely to make their own media selections.
Research has also begun to examine the social
and psychological origins of calls to restrict deemed
harmful to children or to society at large. Studies
of the ‘‘third person effect’’ suggest that support
for restrictions on such content may sometimes be
grounded in systematic overestimates of the ef-
fects of media on other persons. Sociological treat-
ments of the rise of public alarm are particularly
relevant here. Nicola Beisel’s (1992) account of the
late-ninteenth-century attack on obscenity that re-
sulted in the highly suppressive Comstock Laws is
one example of a fruitful direction that research
might take.
INTERNATIONAL ISSUESWhereas most democratic nations have codified
and enforced protections against the most blatant
forms of government suppression of sociopolitical
speech, governments around the world continue
to engage in harsh repression. The bounty placed
on the life of Salman Rushdie in retribution for his
book, The Satanic Verses, is a well-publicized in-
stance of the most egregious form of government-
sanctioned repression. However, a variety of both
legal and extra-legal tactics continue to be used
worldwide to protect those in power. To cite just
two typical examples from 1999: A court in
Kazakhstan suspended publication of an opposi-
tion newspaper for the three months preceding
presidential elections on the pretext that it failed
to indicate the place of printing on its masthead;
and, shortly after the director of the Cameroon
newspaper Le Messager-Populi was released from a
ten-month prison sentence for spreading ‘‘false
information,’’ the paper’s founder was driven from
the country upon threats to his life (see generally,
Webb and Bell 1998). Typical extra-legal means of
suppressing speech critical of the government in-
clude awarding and withdrawing governmental
advertising contracts, the licensing of journalists,
controls on distribution of newsprint, and, more
generally, government ownership and control of
broadcast media.
Controls at the site of reception provide an-
other means of suppressing viewpoints that lack
the official stamp of approval. For example, a
number of countries pose outright bans on owner-
ship of satellite receiving dishes. However, new
technologies, particularly the Internet, pose seri-
ous threats to the control of political information
by authoritarian regimes. The Internet’s impend-
ing threat is linked to the growing dependency
upon computer-based communications in the mar-
ketplace. Authoritarian governments appear to be
faced with a Hobson’s choice: allow connections to
the vast and diverse information resources of the
Internet or face economic stagnation.
Particularly when looking beyond suppressive
controls on political speech, it is important to
recognize the distinction between government-
controlled media and government-funded media.
The BBC is but one example of the government-
funded, public television stations that have devel-
oped reputations for independent news coverage
that gives voice to diverse perspectives of both
majority and minority interests. Publicly-subsidized
television in Holland instantiates an intriguing
model of ‘‘free speech’’ through a system that
allots television channels and channel space on a
proportional basis to key institutions and sociocul-
tural groups. Public television stations in many
European nations seek independence from the
demands of both government and marketplace
through nongovernmental boards of trustees and
through stable funding mechanisms not subject to
annual tampering by politically driven legislatures.INTERNATIONAL INFORMATION FLOWA handful of news agencies, led by the Associated
Press (AP), Reuters, and Agence-France Presse
dominate the news that people around the world
read about issues and events originating outside
their borders. The dominance of both print and
broadcast news by a small group of companies is
particularly felt in developing nations, ones lack-
ing the capital to compete with the economies of
scale enjoyed by entrenched foreign corporations.
The concern generated in developing nations fo-
cuses not only on the news they receive from