Drawing on an astonishing array of famous and infamous examples - from the Washington Post to Geraldo!, from gangsta rap to Barney - to reveal highlights and lowlights in the checkered history of the media, bestselling author Ted Schwarz brings remarkable insight and clarity to this increasingly volatile debate.

This book examines the history of the legal discourse around political falsehood and its future in the wake of the 2012 US Supreme Court decision in US v. Alvarez through communication law, political philosophy, and communication theory perspectives. As US v. Alvarez confirmed First Amendment protection for lies, Robert N. Spicer addresses how the ramifications of that decision function by looking at statutory and judicial handling of First Amendment protection for political deception. Illustrating how commercial speech is regulated but political speech is not, Spicer evaluates the role of deception in politics and its consequences for democracy in a contemporary political environment where political personalities, partisan media, and dark money donors bend the truth and abuse the virtue of free expression.

Jamieson and Cappella examine how the media cover political campaigns and significant legislation. They conclude that by focusing on the game rather than the substance the media are engendering cynicism amongst the general public.

Excerpt from El Mahdi, or the False Prophets and Prophecies of Free Trade: Speech of Hon. John A. Kasson, of Iowa, in the House of Representatives, Tuesday, May 6, 1884 Northern Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Virginia. Farms and real estate in their neighborhood have shared the general advance. The home consumption of cotton has increased from 20 per cent. In 1860 to over 30 per cent in 1883. In a word, all the elements of national development have advanced as rapidly in the South as in the North. Prosperity has not only dawned upon them, but it beams with the light of the midday sun all over the regions of the South. [applause. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Disinformation is not a product of the digital age. False news has always circulated across society, as demonstrated by the case of the 'Great Moon Hoax' in 1835. However, the circulation of false and inaccurate content on the Internet, and particularly on social media, has amplified, as is usually the case in cyberspace, the phenomenon. Indeed, growing concern about potential risks for democratic discourse and processes has emerged in recent years. For example, recent conflicts, particularly in Ukraine, have underlined how disinformation is far beyond only a concern for individual freedoms or national borders. -- Disinformation is primarily connected with the right to freedom of speech, thus raising questions about the tolerance of false content in a democratic society, and consequently what degree of limits on freedom of speech can be constitutionally justified. Primarily, the question is not whether regulating disinformation influences freedom of speech but the reasons for considering its regulation as a challenge for freedom of speech. Therefore, it should be considered that the response to disinformation entails dealing with the degree of protection given to free speech. This is a multifaceted question since each legal system adopts different paradigms of protection even where they share a common liberal matrix. In other words, it is a matter of understanding the limits of freedom of speech and the balancing of this right with legitimate interests or the safeguarding of other constitutional rights. -- Moreover, the digital environment has underlined how the marketplace of ideas is not free, but is shaped by public and private influences. The concept of disinformation is not only influenced by public actors, but also by other actors governing online speech. One inevitable element of the discussion is the key role of private parties, particularly online platforms, within the current news and information ecosystem. The process of content moderation contributes to setting standards for tackling disinformation, increasing the power of online platforms to make decisions on constitutional conflicting interests. -- Within this framework, this book provides a comparative constitutional analysis of the relationship between freedom of speech and disinformation. By examining reports which focus on Belgium, Canada, Croatia, the European Union, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Macau, Romania, Turkey, the United Kingdom, the United States of America and Vietnam, this book analyses the constitutional challenges of balancing freedom of speech and falsehood, and the approaches adopted to deal with the spread of disinformation.