Wow! eBook
A Right to Offend
Author(s): Brian Winston (Author)
- Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
- Publication Date: 13 Sept. 2013
- Language: English
- Print length: 432 pages
- ISBN-10: 1849660158
- ISBN-13: 9781849660150
Book Description
In this new book, Winston provides an account of the current state of freedom of expression in the western world. He analyses all the most pertinent cases of conflict during the last two decades – including the fatwa against Salman Rushdie, the incident of the Danish cartoons and offended celebrities – examining cultural, legal and journalistic aspects of each case.
A Right to Offend offers us a deeper understanding of the increasingly threatening environment in which free speech operates and is defended, as well as how it informs and is central to journalism practice and media freedom more generally. It is important reading for all those interested in freedom of expression in the twenty-first century.Editorial Reviews
Review
Brian Winston’s
A Right to Offend provides two important contributions to this fraught and often under-researched debate. He brings a welcome international scope of his inquiry, guiding the reader through the differing legal systems of, say, France and the U.S. But it is his frequent recourse to history that is most instructive…A highly readable and informative compendium on freedom of expression. –The British Journalism Review, John Kampfner, former chief executive of Index on CensorshipThe book is no slim polemic, either, but a meticulously researched 400-page demolition of arguments for the closing down of speech, not only in the press, but also online and, thankfully, in wider society, too. Winston does a sterling job of placing Hackgate and Leveson in a sound historical and philosophical context that includes John Milton, Salman Rushdie, the internet and everything in between. –Sp!ked Review of Books, Jason Walsh
About the Author
At the University of Glasgow, he was the Glasgow Media Group’s first director, producing
Bad News (1976) and More Bad News (1980). His other books include Media Technology and Society: A History from the Telegraph to the Internet (for which he won ‘Best Book of 1998’, American Association for History and Computing) and Messages: Free Expression, Media and the West from Gutenberg to Google (2005).
