CMS 790 MEDIA THEORIES AND METHODS I Pr. William Uricchio Florence Gallez December 13, 2008 [updated summer 2009] A reception study of Mike Godwin’s book Cyber Rights – Defending Free Speech in the Digital Age and its role in the discursive positioning of a new technology for collaborative journalism in a free, open online space. Be glad that U r free Free 2 change your mind Free 2 go most anywhere, anytime Be glad that U r free There's many a man who's not Be glad 4 what U had baby, what you've got Be glad 4 what you've got Soldiers are a marching, they're writing brand new laws Will we all fight together 4 the most important cause? Will we all fight 4 the right 2 be free? Free (Be glad that U r free) Prince, 1999 album (1982) Reason for selection of text: It may well be that the Prince fan in me was subconsciously influenced by the musician’s joyful hymn to freedom and call for less regulation when I selected Cyber Rights – Defending Free Speech in the Digital Age by Mike Godwin as the central text on which to base my case for more free speech in online news production – one of the guiding principles of my thesis and related research project, Open Park. But then, a call for more freedom on the Net and less regulation in cyberspace is precisely one of Godwin’s core arguments in his second book, first published in 1998 and revised in an expanded edition by MIT in 2003. But there are other reasons for which I selected this book about the First Amendment and how it is applied to the Internet: mainly, it presents a system of ethical and democratic values which I fully espouse and on whose foundation I plan to develop a new journalistic practice for collaborative online news production. The concrete application for this new practice of openly sharing knowledge and resources among journalists covering the same beat or issue is “Open Park” – a Web-based platform for journalists to work together on news stories. The website is now in its second phase of development, with myself and our design team working on developing the new media news-reporting tools that OP journalists will be using. Thus, Godwin's text informs both dimensions of my project for CMS – the building of a free, unfiltered/uncensored space online for Open Park for journalists and other users, and the formation of a normative system of values and principles that protect and foster free speech on the Internet/Net and other digital rights. This normative system will take the shape of a proposed Code of Ethics for collaborative journalism - that is, for all the new forms of digital, hybrid and group-based online news production, such as Twitter reports feeds and news updates on social networks, which so far lack code-based regulations for their practical and ethical use. This new Code of Ethics for today's online journalism is the proposed subject of my CMS thesis. Here it is important to note that in this particular paper I will be focusing on the second part of my project - the theoretical basis for a value-based journalistic practice and its establishment in a new [or one could say 'updated'] Code of Ethics. How Godwin’s methodology for the study of freedom of speech online, as elaborated in his book, was received and how this criticism can further inform my own research on free, open online spaces for collaborative journalism is a crucial exercise in building the ethical foundation of this new practice to be formalized into a new Code. There is actually a section on the OP website devoted to the elaboration of this Code of Ethics, where both my own research and that of similarly interested contributors is published. Here too, the section has the principles of free expression at its heart, with a forum where users and readers can post their own thoughts on an ideal Code of Ethics for today's new journalistic models. So I am using Godwin's book as the basis for my main argument for increased protection of free speech online and of the moral values and professional principles needed for high-quality collaborative journalism. More specifically, as OP reporters and journalism students will be covering the case studies in small and large groups, both local and remote, I expect to be applying Godwin's views on free speech and other constitutional rights in the digital age to the ethical dilemmas that they might encounter in their work, such as dealing with difficult sources. I have also been looking closely at existing cyber laws and how Godwin's interpretation of them can be applied to my own decision of exerting minimal editorial control of what is being published by contributors on the OP website, be it the news report of a group of journalism students or comments by readers to a published story. Thus, all the sections of the site are open to users' comments, from the OP team's personal blogs to the discussion forums. Moderation in the forums is being kept at a minimum, and minimal monitoring of who can post comments or contribute in other ways is also applied, thus paving the way for the OP platform to become a news-reporting and discussion tool for non-skilled users such as the concerned residents of a community and citizen journalists. And, as Godwin argues in Cyber Rights, in Open Park too, unpopular or minority views are welcome as they often spark the most interesting debates. Another right supported by Godwin is also guaranteed in Open Park - that of online anonymity for those contributors to forum discussions who wish to voice uncommon or controversial views but keep their identities secret. Anonymity, the lawyer says, is one of the main guarantors of the free, unconstrained exchange of ideas. Thus, for OP this text is key. Contextual location of the selected text The central role Godwin's Cyber Rights plays in the elaboration of my proposed practice are clear, and this is why the issues of free speech protections and rights he raises in this book and other writings are so important to my project. But does this mean that Godwin's views, and this particular book, were well received and broadly accepted at the time of its release in 1998 and in subsequent writings? Did he convince the skeptics and more conservative elements in society who are calling for a 'safer' Net, with limits on what can be published in order to protect our children for example, but also resulting in limits on free speech? Did they disrupt the discourse on free expression rights at the time, and how did the concrete court cases he worked on informed that debate, or perhaps changed its course? Here a useful comparison can be made with another of my favorite authors in the sphere of developing the Net's full democratic potential and defending diverse voices in online speech: Cass Sunstein, the Harvard Law School professor, now the Obama Administration's regulatory chief person. His views on the dangers of limiting free speech by too much fragmentation of online discourse into specialized niches of interest provoked strong reactions from cyber-optimists at the time of the release of his book Republic.com before 9/11. So much so that he felt compelled to address them and revisit some of his thinking and proposed reforms in a follow-up book, Republic.com 2.0. On this point, it is noteworthy that contrary to Sunstein who reconsiders his theories significantly in his second work so as to take into account criticisms and the latest technological developments, sometimes sounding a little apologetic, Godwin on the other hand makes no such shift in his stance in the second edition of Cyber Rights, opting simply to reformulate his thoughts with an update of the new technological context. In any case, the receptions of these two lawyers' writings are worth juxtaposing for the controversy that they caused upon their publication. Interestingly, Sunstein's main arguments for 'chance, unplanned encounters in open, public space, aimed at embracing and fostering a wider range of views in a democratic debate have still, to this day, failed to garner much appeal and an enthusiastic following. It will certainly be interesting to watch whether his proposals gain acceptance with time. It also did not evade me that despite the time difference between the release dates of Godwin's Cyber Rights and Sunstein's Republic.com, the prevalent doubts and fears among the public about what it considers too lax speech liberties have not changed much and persist throughout those years to this day. Just to be clear, I am using Cyber Rights' 1998 edition as my primary text. In seeking to position Cyber Rights in the context of its publication for a more accurate analysis, it may be useful to remember that Godwin was writing at a time when the nascent sphere of new media was attracting a lot of interest from the legal and regulatory community, as the latter sought ways to contain within normative boundaries a sphere seen as developing uncontrollably, especially on the Internet. Perhaps this is why the early reviewers of Cyber Rights seem to reflect these concerns and sense of uncertainty. Steven J. Dick of Southern Illinois University Carbondale writes in The International Journal on Media Management “I pick up a book called Cyber Rights and I pick up a conundrum. Lawyer and technology analyst Mike Godwin has all credentials to write an important yet nearly incomprehensible book.