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2 books match the query 'Schejter, Amit M.'

cover of Muting Israeli Democracy: How Media and Cultural Policy Undermine Free Expression

Muting Israeli Democracy

How Media and Cultural Policy Undermine Free Expression

Amit M. Schejter

University of Illinois Press, 2009

The result of years of critical analysis of Israeli media law, this book argues that the laws governing Israeli electronic media are structured to limit the boundaries of public discourse. Amit M. Schejter posits the theory of a "mute democracy," one in which the media are designed to provide a platform for some voices to be heard over others. While Israel's institutions may be democratic, and while the effect of these policies may be limited, this book contends that free speech in Israel is institutionally muted to ensure the continued domination of the Jewish majority and its preferred interpretation of what Israel means as a Jewish-democratic state. Analyzing a wide range of legal documents recorded in Israel from 1961 to 2007, Muting Israeli Democracy demonstrates in scrupulous detail how law and policy are used to promote the hegemonic national culture through the constraints and obligations set on electronic media.
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cover of The Rights of Communication: Beyond Free Speech

The Rights of Communication

Beyond Free Speech

Amit M. Schejter

University of Westminster Press, 2027

Freedom of expression has long been regarded as the cornerstone of democratic theory, communication law, and human rights. Yet many of the rights that shape contemporary communication, including the right to receive information, the right to be heard, privacy, anonymity, memory, and the governance of digital platforms, sit uneasily within an expression-centred framework. The Rights of Communication: Beyond Free Speech argues that a Right to Communication should instead serve as the normative foundation for rights that sustain communication.


Drawing on philosophy, communication theory, legal scholarship, and media policy, Amit M. Schejter develops a theory of a foundational Right to Communication from which a coherent family of Communication Rights emerges. Rather than treating these rights as isolated doctrines or as extensions of free speech, the book shows how they protect the people, institutions, and conditions that make meaningful human communication possible.


The book examines rights associated with senders, receivers, media and platforms, the integrity of communication, information, privacy, non-communication, and memory, arguing that together they constitute a coherent architecture of Communication Rights. Combining normative theory with constitutional analysis and comparative perspectives from the United States, Europe, and international human rights law, it offers a new way of thinking about the relationship between communication and human rights. 

The Rights of Communication: Beyond Free Speech will be of interest to scholars and students of communication, media, law, political science, and human rights, as well as policymakers and legal practitioners concerned with the future of democratic communication.
 

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