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Fall 1998

"Industrialization" of the First Amendment

Freimut Duve is a member of the Lower House of the German Federal Parliament and Representative on Freedom of the Media for the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

This "industrialization" of Article 5 of the German constitution (or of the American First Amendment) has presented the modern democracies and many media firms with a problem for which we do not yet have either a precise name or a solution. The "Article 5" share in the turnover of the great media corporations that is to say, journalism in the narrow sense - is now small, and it is even smaller if we consider, as the central element of a free democracy, the narrower definition of freedom of speech and of the press. Although its economic significance is slight, its political significance for the free democracies is great: It is indispensable!

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