bingle

I know there's already a thread about the Sinclair anti-Kerry movie, but I was thinking about the issue a bit and my thoughts went off in other directions.

When the constitution was written, there were really only two major powers to worry about: the government and the church. The constitution addressed possible abuses of power (in the realm of suppressing expression) by these two entities by specifying that church and state were separate, and by specifying that the government did not have the power to curtail free speech.

However, when the constitution was written businesses, while occassionally powerful, didn't even begin to impinge on the speech of citizens. Anyone could reach basically the same number of people by shouting on street corners, writing tracts, or whatever. People can still do these things today, but there are much more powerful, effective ways of reaching people. Unfortunately, these ways are controlled by private interests, and thus there's a third group that has the power of suppressing expression.

This group is somewhat safe from the abuses of the past - a government cannot depend on private enterprise to pass around propaganda, and neither can organized religion. In general, private enterprise has shown that in most cases, it will show what can make money, regardless of whether the government or organized religious groups like it.

This leaves two other possible problems for free speech, though. One is what Mill called the "tyranny of the majority" - companies that control the means for expression, in general, will broadcast what the majority (or a significant minority) wants to hear. This means that minority opinions, even if they are correct, will not be heard. There simply is no "market" for those opinions.

The other problem is what I'm more worried about - private enterprise has its own set of goals and opinions, and will be hesitant to carry speech that goes directly against those. No major media outlet will carry stories glorifying an overthrow of capitalist oppressors, because they ARE "capitalist oppressors". We can argue about where those goals lie, exactly, and whether or not the media is conservative or liberal, but the fact remains that there's going to be some subset of facts that no media source (especially large, corporate-owned ones) can question.

So anyway, here are my questions for debate:
Because this group now holds much of the power over citizens' speech, does the First Amendment need amending to ensure that citizens still have that freedom?
Does the Internet fix this imbalance and give everyone an almost-equal footing?
What holes in an extreme free-market theory does this point to, if any?
Will individuals ever regain their power in society without free speech (or even with it?)
Is this even a problem, or are alternative media sources widespread enough to counteract the massive availability of Big Media?

Will our hero survive the Mind Ray and deliver justice to the Xarkons? Tune in next week!

Bingle