Freedom of speech and the press are considered among the most important characteristics of a democratic society. In most democratic societies, the press has undergone a long journey to reach the status that it has today. Throughout history, there have been several limitations and constraints in the way of free speech and free press. “In the US, England, France, and Sweden, it took several centuries to move from an authoritarian model of the free press to one that embraced libertarianism.” The freedom of speech and the press is not an absolute freedom there are certain limitations to it, for instance, speech that involves defamation, libel, incitement to imminent lawless action, or true threats could be punished and there are several Supreme Court opinions explaining why obscenity, conspiracy, nude dancing, and threats are not protected under the First Amendment. Even though the freedom of speech and the press has significantly advanced throughout the years, yet First Amendment scholars believe that there is still room for improvement to further the freedom of expression especially when it comes to that of the press. Several legal scholars argue that the First Amendment has already drawn a distinction between the speech and the press by explicitly mentioning each of them separately. Therefore, the press as an institution should be given some extra advantage and privilege to easily access and freely disseminate information as compared to the general public. Otherwise, the Press Clause would be a constitutional redundancy if the press is not treated differently. Read more...

One of the arguably most significant markers of group identity is language, because language may signify a person’s race, nationality, ethnicity and social status. Some scholars even argue that linguistic competencies of an individual may impact how strongly he or she identifies with the relevant group and how other in-group members perceive his/her membership and loyalty to the group (Gaudet & Clément, 2009). Thus, arguing that in order for someone to affiliate to a group s/he must be knowledgeable about the group’s culture and able to speak its language. Global immigration has put immigrants in a difficult place where they face the dilemma of choosing between their native language and the language of their host nations. Preserving native language may be perceived essential to an individual’s ethnic identification but some immigrants are afraid that it might hinder their children’s academic success in the educational system where the language of the host nation is dominant (Park, 2019). While adopting the dominant language may reduce intergroup distance, promote acculturation and convergence towards the dominant group, but it may create a generation gap within the immigrant’s ingroup (Nguyen & Hamid, 2019). Read More...

Ever since the United States invaded Afghanistan in 2001, the independent media and freedom of the press emerged. The quality and quantity of free media escalated during the past two decades. One of the major achievements of the post-Taliban Afghanistan is believed to be the press freedom (Popal, 2021). However, doing journalism in Afghanistan has never been an easy task. Afghan journalists are regularly threatened, intimidated, and attacked for the work they do. There are multiple sources of threats to the free press in Afghanistan including but not limited to insurgency, legal issues, political pressure, economic challenges, security problems and extreme cultural norms of the Afghan society (Khalvatgar, 2014). Within a period of four months between December 2020 and March 2021, twelve journalists were killed in Afghanistan (Popal, 2021). Afghan journalists are forced to flee their country and seek refuge in other countries because of critical reporting on the insurgent groups such as the Taliban and al-Qaeda or going against the strict but vaguely defined religious values (MacKenzie, 2014; Mitra et al., 2019; Popal, 2021). Read More...