NCJ Number
130181
Journal
Journal of Law and Society Volume: 17 Issue: 4 Dated: (Winter 1990) Pages: 395-410
Date Published
1990
Length
16 pages
Annotation
The article uses case studies to illustrate and demonstrate that the language of law is a system of ephemeral variables in an eternally repeating machine of identification and rejection and that such an understanding of law provides an accurate explanation of what is happening in various legal controversies.
Abstract
The authors examine the parameters of the debate in the 1990 Calcutt Report to study the traditional idea of a civil right to freedom of expression and how this freedom holds sway over a right to privacy. The article then explores the area of regulatory or social welfare law where the State or society is supposed to be acting affirmatively to protect the individual yet where the instruments of social control and regulation have become ends in themselves and do not permit freedom of expression by those being protected. Topics covered include the post-modern text as absolute self-expression, absolute press freedom and the silent public, proliferating protections, and regulation as compulsive viewing. 89 footnotes