Annotated Bibliography On Free Speech

Meili West
Dr. Doerr
Rhet./Comp. II
2 February 2015

Final Draft_Paper 1_Annotated Bibliography What exactly do we mean when we talk about free speech? Should there be limits to free speech? Some would argue against the claim, because once one right is taken away it, it takes away more rights. When would it stop? It defeats the purpose of the first amendment. On the other hand, some would argue that there should be limits in order to help stop hate speech. While this issue remains controversial, scholastic articles written by various authors not only address the issue,but provide an insight on each side. Let’s see what they had to say.
Bossaller, Jenny S., and John M. Budd. “What We Talk about When We Talk about Free Speech.” The Library
Ms. Bossaller and Mr. Budd recount a debate between to professional librarians over this issue who argue opposing sides of whether librarians should be the arbiters of truth. Regarding lawyers, the authors note that legal scholars also differ in their judgments related to free expression, with some arguing that the First Amendment is malleable given changes in society and time, and others claiming that it is absolute in its protection of free speech. Disagreements among lawyers are many, and the authors offer several different examples based on different rhetoric styles. The purpose of this essay is to show academic audiences that dilemmas over freedom of speech can be analyzed by an examination of the rhetoric, specifically what is said and how it is said. However, their article offers nothing new in the broad discourse on free speech and simply repeats the same things over and over again. It is too long, too confusing, poorly constructed, and can be summed up with a simple statement: even librarians and lawyers are on both sides of the fence about free speech. This article offers little help for my project.

Greenblatt, Alan. "Free Speech at Risk." CQ Researcher 26 Apr. 2013: 377-400. Web. 2 Feb.
He quotes a law professor from
George Washington University who asserts that, “the decline of free speech has come not from any single blow, but rather from thousands of paper cuts of well-intentioned exceptions designed to maintain social harmony.” Greenblatt uses tons of examples and many quotes from others in telling his story of a world in which free speech, once seen as close to an absolute right in many countries, now conflicts with other values, such as security, the protection of children and the desire not to offend religious sensibilities. He cites stories in countries long considered to be violators of free speech, such as Pakistan,
North Korea and Russia, and also countries that have long been seen as protectors of free speech, such as the United States, England and Australia. Included in his lengthy article are graphics that illustrate a country-by-country color-coded map on the status of press freedom worldwide and others that show the rising number of journalists killed and imprisoned because of articles in which they criticized governments or religions.
Greenblatt’s article poses several thoughtful questions to the reader, the most