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Saturday, July 26, 2003

JB

Australia and Democratic Culture

I have been spending two very pleasant days in Auckland, New Zealand, and am about to travel to Sydney, Australia, where I'm going to give a lecture on Democratic Culture and Digital Speech on Thursday.

The basic idea is that the Internet makes particularly salient features of freedom of speech that must now be central to any robust theory of freedom of expression.

Freedom of speech is interactive and appropriative; it involves continuous exchange and influence between people and it builds on cultural materials that lay to hand. Even dissent builds on what it critiques.

Freedom of speech is important and valuable because it promotes a democratic culture, which is the fair ability of everyone to participate in the processes of meaning making and cultural production that, in turn, help shape and constitute them as individuals.

The focus on democratic culture is far broader than a concern with democratic governance or democratic deliberation-- the most prominent free speech theories of the twentieth century. And it emphasizes liberty, popular culture, and popular participation in culture far more than theories of democratic deliberation tend to do.

More about this in the days ahead.


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