info
 
29 Dec 2010 /

the liberalization of free speech: or, how protest in public space is silenced

By don mitchell

Through the use of three-case studies, Geographer Don Mitchell details how the regulation of public assembly is used to control, if not suppress, the movement of free speech and its public forums. First published in 2003.

 

 

“To be silenced is to be kept from being heard. My goal in this essay is to explore how such a silencing - such a keeping from being heard - is accomplished not in the name of the outright suppression of speech, but in the name of its liberalization. In American public spaces, I will argue, the contemporary silencing of dissenting speech is more and more accomplished through a language, and an accompanying set of regulations, that purportedly serves to protect the very rights that are being suppressed…”

Share this