What Conversation? Free Speech and Defamation Law

Abstract

Common rationales for free speech are offered in legal writing across many countries, even though their laws regulating speech differ markedly. This article suggests another way of thinking about speech, based on particular qualities of speech which help to explain why public speech – or at least public speech perceived as valuable for cultural, political or other purposes – is frequently thought of as a conversation. That often appears as the ideal, but a conversational conception can limit what is seen to be at stake in the control of speech. Instead of imagining public speech as open exchange that leads to agreement, here a slightly different vision is offered based more on the articulati..