The Communication Crisis in America, And How to Fix It
This book critiques U.S. public policy about communication and offers guidelines to improve public safety and create strong democratic communities. The lack of effective emergency communication, basic information about health care, education, jo
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The Communication Crisis in America, And How to Fix It
Mark Lloyd • Lewis A. Friedland Editors
The Communication Crisis in America, And How to Fix It
Editors Mark Lloyd University of Southern California Los Angeles, California, USA
ISBN 978-1-349-94924-3 (hard cover) ISBN 978-1-349-95030-0 (soft cover) DOI 10.1057/978-1-349-94925-0
Lewis A. Friedland University of Wisconsin-Madison Madison, Wisconsin, USA
ISBN 978-1-349-94925-0 (eBook)
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016947005 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. Cover illustration Moodboard/Getty Images Printed on acid-free paper This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature The registered company is Nature America Inc. New York
FOREWORD
In his 1822 letter to the then Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky William Taylor Barry, James Madison wrote that: “A popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy; or, perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance: And a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.”
This Enlightenment Era belief in the crucial nexus of democratic governance and an informed public is captured more formally in the US Bill of Rights’ First Amendment and its protection of the freedoms of speech, the press, peaceable assembly, and petitioning the government for a redress of grievances. The linking together of these four positive freedoms is no coincidence, as the quote from Madison makes clear. For citizens “to be their own governors” in the kind of representative system constructed by the Founders, they required the right to express their views individually and collectively, even if those views were in opposition to people in power. But to do so in a way that avoided “a farce or a tragedy; or, perhaps both,” citizens required “information, or the means o
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