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Article published In:
When Dialogue Fails
Edited by Anja Müller-Wood
[Language and Dialogue 12:1] 2022
► pp. 130–149

Dialogue and speech centricity in the public sphere

| Denison University

This article examines how speech centric legal and public policy interpretations of the U.S. First Amendment – which guarantees constitutional protection for the freedoms of speech, press, religion, and assembly, from government constraint – tend to significantly impede democratic political discourse in the public sphere. Among other problems, speech centricity diminishes the importance of listening, adding to the crises of polarization and demonization now fracturing public political discourse. By drawing upon dialogical theory, speech act theory, and theories of listening, the essay explores how a listening-based perspective on legal and policy conceptions of free expression could perhaps reinvigorate political discourse.

Keywords: democratic discourse, free expression, first amendment, politics of listening, supreme court, telecommunication policies, uptake
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.On speech, dialogue and listening power
  • 3.Dialogue and public discourse
  • 4.Free expression, the first amendment and the right to listen
  • 5.Mediated listening and the fairness doctrine
  • 6.Money as speech: The first amendment and campaign finance reform
  • 7.Conclusion: Five problems of speech centricity in public discourse
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 7 March 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ld.00115.lip
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