西方自由主义影响下的新闻自由——从17世纪以来西方政治传播学历史文献的角度

17世纪以来,投身于英国资产阶级革命的西方政治哲学家们对个人自由和新闻自由进行了深入的思考和论证,自由主义延伸到新闻传播中自然便提出了思想自由、言论自由以及出版自由等问题。17世纪以来的西方政治哲学家们基本上都将上述自由归因于天赋人权。英国思想家弥尔顿强调人是理性动物,保护言论和出版自由是因为只有允许人们公开辩论才能够发现真理,20世纪以来依靠公开辩论发现真理这一观念最终导致了思想和意见的自由市场理论的产生,它们成为支撑新闻自由理论的基石。在西方,新闻自由被人们视为一项绝对的精神权利,理论的倡导最终也导致了实践中的立法保障。回顾新闻自由的发展过程,有助于我们理解20世纪以来自由主义复兴的西方当代社会语境中,新闻自由所面对的进退维谷的现实。

The Freedom of Press under the Influence of the Western Liberalism: From the 17th Century Western Political Communication History of Literature

Western political philosophers who throw themselves into British Bourgeois revolution have conducted a very thorough reflection and argument about personal liberty and freedom of the press since 17th century. When liberalism was extended to the news media industry, the problems like freedom of thought, freedom of expression and freedom of press are naturely brought forward, and all these problem were ascribed to the natural rights by political philosophers of 17th century. English thinkers Milton put emphasis on that human are rational animals, protecting the freedom of expression and press is because only via public debate can the truth be discovered. Since 20th century the idea that the discoverment of truth is just depened on public debate finally led to occurrence of the theory of free market ideas, which becomes the cornerstone of the press freedom theory. In the West, freedom of press is considered as an absolute spiritual right. The advocacy of the theory finally leads to the protection of law in practice. Recalling the development of freedom of the press helps us understand that the freedom of the press has been facing a reality that they are standing at a nonplus in the context of the liberalism renaissance since the 20th century.