Freedom Without Idealization: Non-Ideal Approaches to Freedom of Communication

Abstract

This article discusses the normative perspectives that guide debates on freedom of communication and media from the perspective of the distinction between ideal and nonideal theory. In political theory, ideal theories are often criticized as being detached from actually existing social conditions and real-world problems. Similarly, it can be argued that abstract and idealized models of freedom of communication and media do not provide the most useful theoretical resources for analyzing the factors that enable or constrain free expression in contemporary societies. The article discusses the implication of three different non-ideal approaches to freedom: Axel Honneth's normative reconstruction, the capabilities approach developed by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum, and the notion of agonistic freedom associated with radical-democratic theory.

Protecting Democracy from Disinformation: Normative Threats and Policy Responses

“…Critics of disinformation policies often make vague assertions about their threat to freedom of expression. As Karppinen (2019) has observed, claims that regulations undermine freedom of expression are “often mobilized by those in power to block reforms and close down debate” (p. 72), and tend to ignore the many existing obstructions to the use of public speech, including “new forms of platform dominance and algorithmic censorship” (p. 68). This article has argued that the dangers of disinformation policies are not simply their restrictions on what individual people can say but also that they may unduly empower government agencies, governing political parties, or other entrenched interests to influence communication at crucial moments (including during election campaigns).…”

“…Instead my approach is abductive (Feilzer 2010), in that I identified both democratic goods under threat and key policy sectors involved by alternating between the analysis of policy documents and interpretation using alternate theoretical concepts. It is thus a form of “non-ideal” normative analysis, which operates “between abstract ideal models and mere empirical descriptivism, [and] which can function as a conceptual resource for evaluating, identifying, and pushing up against different ways in which actual, existing institutions, policies, and circumstances” can promote valued aims such as democratic communication (Karppinen 2019: 73).…”

The Transformation of the Idea of Internet Freedom in the XXIst Century

“…There are other points of view on the issue of freedom in the context of media and communication in general. K. Karppinen, for example, points out: "Especially in political debates on the media, but also in research, the status of freedom as a foundational ideal is often simply taken for granted, which leaves questions of normative assumptions unexamined… Despite the recognition of the decidedly non-ideal circumstances surrounding the contemporary media landscape, the debates tend to be couched in ideal frameworks of the free marketplace of ideas, the public sphere, or some other established model or metaphor of what communicative freedom would mean under idealized, hypothetical conditions" [19]. In practice, at the level of national jurisdictions, regulation occurs at the initiative of the most influential national actors depending on the specifics of the political and economic system.…”