ABSTRACT

Academic and judicial thinking about freedom of speech seems to have entered a new phase, one that might be called the "reemergence of theory". The 1960's and 1970's brought a new phase to free speech theory, a phase that substituted for the question "How much"? The seemingly simpler question of "How"? Moreover, for every instance of judicial broadening of the first amendment, there seems to be at least ten attempts in the academic literature to have the first amendment swallow up one more segments of society or of governmental action. With this process of broadening, or at least arguing about broadening, has come the reemergence of theory. With such a theory in place, it becomes much easier to confront the questions raised by the broadening of the first amendment. The problem, of course, is that there are numerous candidates for the appropriate underlying theory of the free speech and free press clauses of the first amendment.