Evolving perspectives on the right to communicate

Abstract

The "right to communicate" is an evolving and expanding concept that was first enunciated in 1969 by Jean d'Arcy. This collection of 22 original essays takes the first comprehensive look at this emerging idea and examines it from the ideologically and culturally varied viewpoints of the contributors. The right to communicate is comprised of all the familiar rights of press, speech, opinion--as found in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights--as well as of the concerns for privacy, and access to media and information. But as the essays here show, the right to communicate is more than a collection of reorganization of familiar rights, going far beyond them so as to merit being called a "new human right."