Struggle For Freedom Of Press Research Articles

State of Media Independence and Journalists' Struggle for Press Freedom in Faisalabad, Pakistan

This research paper presents an overview of the journalists' efforts for the maintenance of the fundamental right of Freedom of Press and Expression in Faisalabad, Pakistan. The current study also observed the role of media personals as a silent speed breaker against the powerful dictator of the time General Parvez Musharraf and his regimen the third-largest city of the Pakistan Faisalabad. The study explains the scenario of resistance in the journalistic community against Musharraf's draconian rule in the country, especially focused on the struggle of media personnel in Faisalabad, against Musharraf regime for the freedom of expression as well as freedom of media. The study assesses the scenario to break the political silence during the rule of a powerful military dictator in2002 as well as in 2007. This paper may be helpful to understand the struggle against the Musharraf regime by journalists in Faisalabad. The study resulted that journalists of Faisalabad broke the silence by opposing the dictatorship of the Musharraf regime and played a significant role as human rights defenders in 2002 and also at the time of promulgating the emergency in November 2007. The study is the outcome of the qualitative content analysis of media reports as well as in-depth interviews of the senior media professionals and the sound survey of the literature published on democracy, basic human rights, and freedom of expression and the media

Review: <i>The South African Letters of Thomas Pringle</i>

Randolph Vigne has assembled these 223 South African letters of Thomas Pringle from archives, libraries and private collections in South Africa, Great Britain and Canada. The first few letters were written from Edinburgh, where Pringle was preparing to leave for Cape, last few from London, where, after passage of Emancipation Act, Pringle was expecting to return to South Africa. The last letter is dated 17th November 1834. Pringle died on 5th December and collection closes with his Last Will and Testament. The poet and abolitionist was an active correspondent: he writes from Deptford, Cape Town, Bavians River (Pringle's spelling, later Teviotdale), Graaff-Reinet, Grahamstown, Theopolis, Uitenhage and many other places visited in his criss-crossing of Cape. The sequencing and division of letters follow Pringle's career: from settlement of his family on frontier, through success and disappointment of Cape Town and clash with Somerset, to turning-point, probably a meeting with Andries Stockenstrom and Dr. John Phillip, which led Pringle to final calling with which he would leave colony: the general cause of liberty, and last years of abolitionist activity in London. Randolph Vigne, who has done Pringle proud - transcriptions, notes and introduction are excellent - is, I understand, working on a biography of Pringle, which we can now look forward to as a fitting culmination of work begun by Patricia Morris's account of life. In his work on these letters Randolph Vigne has already brought readers closer to distinctive personality of Pringle and to complex ways in which he was implicated in history and politics of his time. Liberalism is a contested order in South Africa today but Pringle's struggle for press freedom has a continuing relevance.

Years of Living Dangerously

Maria Eismont talks to Dmitry Muratov, editor of the newspaper Novaya Gazeta, about his struggle for press freedom and justice in Russia

Inventing an alternative through oppositional publishing: Afrikaans alternative book publishing in apartheid South Africa - the publishing house Taurus (1975-1991) as a case study

The article highlights aspects of oppositional, underground and alternative cultural production, specifically book publishing in Afrikaans, in apartheid South Africa. It provides an overview of contemporary cultural and literary events that re-evaluate anti-apartheid initiatives from within the Afrikaans community. The publishing history of a significantly important anti-apartheid print culture institution, the independent anti-apartheid publishing house Taurus (1975-1991), is reconstructed. This history is positioned within a broad historical overview of the origin of South African publishing and the struggle for press freedom; the origin and development of Afrikaans and the rise of Afrikaner nationalism and apartheid; the context of legislative restrictions; and the impact of censorship on the climate of cultural production. The article concludes with some remarks concerning the current state of censorship in post-apartheid South Africa. Innovation Vol. 35 2007 pp. 91-124

The struggle for press freedom in Russia: reflections of a Russian journalist

As I write these lines, in April 2007, I am in a rather strange mood, subject to mixed feelings and expectations. A week ago my office e-mail failed because, we were told, the server was somehow co...

Hong Kong Citizens' Beliefs in Media Neutrality and Perceptions of Press Freedom: Objectivity as Self-Censorship?

Premised upon the argument that the professional norm of objectivity is intricately related to the strategic struggle for press freedom in post-handover Hong Kong, this article examines how citizens' beliefs in media neutrality—a central manifestation of objectivity—relate to their perceptions of media self-censorship and press freedom.

Nuclear Ambiguity and the Media: The Israeli Case

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1. Asher Arian, Ilan Talmud and Tamar Hermann, National Security and Public Opinion in Israel, Tel Aviv, 1988. 2. Leonard S. Spector, The Undeclared Bomb, Cambridge, MA, 1988, pp. 386–387m 3. See Protocols of the Vanunu Trial, No. 260139. 4. Shlomo Aronson, The Politics and Strategy of Nuclear Weapons in the Middle East, Albany, NY, 1992. 5. Yehoshafat Harkabi, Nuclear War and Nuclear Peace, Tel Aviv, 1983. 6. Yuval Neeman, ‘Israel in the Nuclear Age’, Nativ, Vol. 5, No. 46 (1995). 7. Avner Cohen, ‘Nuclear Weapons, Opacity, and Israeli Democracy’, in Avner Yaniv (ed.), National Security and Democracy in Israel, Boulder and London, 1993. 8. Dina Goren, Secrecy and The Right to Know, Ramat Gan, 1979. 9. Moshe Negbi, Paper Tiger: The Struggle for Press Freedom in Israel, Tel Aviv, 1985. 10. Zeev Segal, Freedom of the Press — Between Myth and Reality, Tel Aviv, 1996. 11. Protocols of the Vanunu Trial, No. 260138. 12. Politika, November 1987. 13. Davar, 29–30 December 1986. 14. Alternativa, March 1987; June 1987. 15. Politika, March 1987. 16. Asher Arian, ‘Public Opinion in Israel on the Nuclear Subject’, Strategic Update, November 1998. 17. Goren, Secrecy and the Right to Know, Chapters 10, 11. 18. Survey carried put by the Jaffee Centre for Strategic Studies, Tel Aviv University, 1999. 19. Ha'aretz, 29 March 2000. 20. Ha'aretz, 29 March 2000 21. Ha'aretz, 29 March 2000, 25 May 2000. 22. Ha'aretz, 29 March 2000, 29 March 2000. 23. Survey by the Jaffee Centre for Strategic Studies, Tel Aviv University, 1987. 24. Ha'aretz, 25 March 1976. 25. Address by Hanoch Marmori at conference on ‘Nuclear Weaponry, the Public and The Media’, Haifa University, 1995. 26. Politika, November 1992. 27. Zvi Lavie, ‘The Editors Committee: Myth and Reality’, in 1987 Journalists Yearbook, Tel Aviv, Israel Journalists' Association. 28. Ha'aretz, 12 October 1962. 29. Politika, March 1987. 30. Shishi, 24 February 1993. 31. Avner Cohen, Israel and the Bomb, New York, 1998; Yediot Aharonot, 12 June 2000; http://www.seas.gwu.edu/nsarchive/israel/history/ltm. 32. Ha'aretz, 20 July 2000. 33. Ha'aretz, 17 August 1998. 34. pp. 508–511. 35. Sunday Times, 5 October 1986; Yoel Cohen, The Whistleblower from Dimona: Vanunu, Israel and the Bomb, Tel Aviv, 2005. 36. William Burrows and Robert Windem, Critical Mass: The Dangerous Race for Superpowers a Fragmenting World, NewYork, 1994. 37. Ha'aretz, 29 February 1976. 38. Harold Hough, ‘Israel's Nuclear Infrastructure’, Jane's Intelligence Review, November 1994. 39. Ma'ariv, 29 April 1994. Additional informationNotes on contributorsYoel CohenYoel Cohen is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Communications, Netanya Academic College, Netanya, Israel. He is author of Whistleblowers and the Bomb: Vanunu, Israel, & Nuclear Secrecy (London, Pluto Press 2005).

Emancipation, the media and modernity: some reflections on Garnham’s Kantian turn

In Emancipation, the Media and Modernity, Nicholas Garnham argues for the continued viability of the Enlightenment project, suggesting that, despite attacks from the right and various postmodernists, ‘coercive inequality and avoidable ignorance’ still require an enlightened response. Discarding history is an especially fraught outcome of the turn away from Enlightenment values. Where history might inform, say, public debate and policy-making on and for the media, it is instead largely ignored. In consequence, the Enlightenment concept of free expression is now by no means seen as a crucial public good, the key human right. The history of the struggle for press freedom is forgotten. The basic principle of free speech is abridged and adjusted for non-print media as with current British communications regulatory structures. However, it can be argued that all of the received legitimations for media-specific content controls above the general law - from supposed spectrum scarcity through to the public right to know - are poorly grounded. Their undebated general acceptance dangerously undermines the concept of free expression. Yet, as Garnham reminds us, for Kant and his successors emancipation depended on enlightenment which in turn depended on publicity - the free exchange of ideas about the world and about social relations with fellow citizens in order to arrive at truth and a freely chosen and shared moral community.

Herman Lynn Womack

Although media historians have broadly chronicled the struggle for press freedom in the United States, they have done little to document the lives and contributions of pornographers. This article seeks to begin filling that void by illuminating the life, work, and First Amendment struggles of Herman Lynn Womack, a publisher who specialized in materials designed to titillate and appeal to gay men. His battles against the efforts of the U. S. Post Office to halt the circulation of his publications are chronicled, and the social and legal ramifications of his ultimate victory in a landmark 1962 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court are examined The ruling in Manual Enterprises Inc. v. J. Edward Day expanded the limits of First Amendment protection and began erasing the social stigma imposed on homosexuality.

An orchestra of voices: making the argument for greater speech and press freedom in the People's Republic of China

Foreword Preface Introduction On Socialist Press Freedom The Proletariat's Struggle for Press Freedom What Should Socialist Press Freedom Look Like? Press Freedom is a Process Personal Opinions on Macro-Issues in Press Reform Renewing Our Concept of Journalism Effective Press Reform within a Socialist Market Economy China's legal System Concerning Press Law The Difficulty of Writing Press Legislation in China Protecting Both the Individual's Rights to Reputation and the Press's Right to Report The Viability of Limited Public Ownership and Interregional Development