ABSTRACT
The kind of communicative process envisioned by the First Amendment requires that all participants—speaker and listener—be free to join or leave that process, to affirm or reject the ideas conveyed during that process, to strengthen or sever at any time the communicative relationship. The speech clause is not about making sure that every bit of speech can flow unimpeded to every member of the public it is about each person being able to decide what ideas are right for consideration. Yet, the more that media speech becomes ubiquitous, the more power people need to control it. As has been so often stated by both courts and scholars, the free speech clause of the First Amendment serves to guarantee individual autonomy in matters of speech and personal beliefs. Control defines individual autonomy, and individual autonomy is at the very root of the freedoms laid out in the Bill of Rights.
