Abstract
Globalisation and the internet era have radically changed the culture of information and the operational environment of freedom of speech. In considering the development of democracy, we must start with the rights to and the actual opportunities for participation: from the political culture. Democracy should be analysed not only at the level of the political regime, but also in relation to the state as a legal system and to certain aspects of the overall social context.
What do digital technologies teach us? The internet and digital technologies help us look at freedom of speech from a different perspective. Social media is a driver of social change and it changes the field of information. In the political arena, it can help a loosely coordinated public to assemble and demand change together. Discussion on the web is influential; yet somebody always has to make and confirm the final decision and bear the responsibility for it. How can the willpower that has gathered on the streets and squares be channelled into permanent reforms?
In the modern digital age freedom of speech is not only about individual rights to express oneself or access information; the question is a wider one about the whole social environment, the technology of communications and people’s ability to use it. The new technology also makes it easier for individuals to survive. The world and its complicated causal connections are available to everyone—but are not easy to understand.
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Hallberg, P., Virkkunen, J. (2017). Freedom of Speech in the Turbulence of the Changing World. In: Freedom of Speech and Information in Global Perspective. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-94990-8_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-94990-8_8
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