EDITOR’S NOTE
The articles in Volume 98, Number 5 of the Southern California Law Review were delivered as papers at a symposium on “The First Amendment and Listener Interests” in November 2024. The symposium was organized in coordination with Professors Erin Miller, Rebecca Brown, and Abby Wood, and with support from USC Gould School of Law.
Free speech rights affect the interests not just of speakers but also of listeners of speech. Listeners have interests as autonomous agents, thinkers, and voters, all of which are served by the information, ideas, reasons, and stimulus to thinking that listening to speech can provide. For this reason, many prominent free speech theories—and especially democratic theories—foreground listener interests.
Yet federal courts in constitutional free speech cases tend to focus on and privilege speakers, those who most clearly hold and exercise free speech rights, over listeners. Indeed, recent courts have increasingly turned away from earlier cases—involving, for instance, campaign finance, media regulation, and corporate and commercial speech—that explicitly recognized listener interests. Now, some First Amendment scholars are beginning to push back and suggest that this neglect of listener interests disserves both the doctrine and free speech theory.
Listener interests are at the heart of many high-profile legal questions, including ones involving commercial speech and telecommunications regulation. As the Supreme Court expands the number of entities that count as speakers, they may well set aside negative impacts on listeners. In Moody v. Netchoice, LLC, for example, the Court recently determined that social media platforms have free speech rights to “editorial discretion.” Such rights could, at least in theory, come into conflict with listeners’ access to information and discretion over what they consume.
Volume 98 of the Southern California Law Review is pleased to present this special symposium edition. This issue features a group of the nation’s leading scholars in First Amendment law providing various perspectives on contemporary issues in free speech rights from the perspective of listeners.
Editor-in-Chief & Managing Editor, Volume 98
Vol. 98 Editor’s Note
EDITOR’S NOTE
The articles in Volume 98, Number 5 of the Southern California Law Review were delivered as papers at a symposium on “The First Amendment and Listener Interests” in November 2024. The symposium was organized in coordination with Professors Erin Miller, Rebecca Brown, and Abby Wood, and with support from USC Gould School of Law.
Free speech rights affect the interests not just of speakers but also of listeners of speech. Listeners have interests as autonomous agents, thinkers, and voters, all of which are served by the information, ideas, reasons, and stimulus to thinking that listening to speech can provide. For this reason, many prominent free speech theories—and especially democratic theories—foreground listener interests.
Yet federal courts in constitutional free speech cases tend to focus on and privilege speakers, those who most clearly hold and exercise free speech rights, over listeners. Indeed, recent courts have increasingly turned away from earlier cases—involving, for instance, campaign finance, media regulation, and corporate and commercial speech—that explicitly recognized listener interests. Now, some First Amendment scholars are beginning to push back and suggest that this neglect of listener interests disserves both the doctrine and free speech theory.
Listener interests are at the heart of many high-profile legal questions, including ones involving commercial speech and telecommunications regulation. As the Supreme Court expands the number of entities that count as speakers, they may well set aside negative impacts on listeners. In Moody v. Netchoice, LLC, for example, the Court recently determined that social media platforms have free speech rights to “editorial discretion.” Such rights could, at least in theory, come into conflict with listeners’ access to information and discretion over what they consume.
Volume 98 of the Southern California Law Review is pleased to present this special symposium edition. This issue features a group of the nation’s leading scholars in First Amendment law providing various perspectives on contemporary issues in free speech rights from the perspective of listeners.
Editor-in-Chief & Managing Editor, Volume 98
98 S. Cal. L. Rev. 761
Like this article?