Overview

"In How Machines Came to Speak Jennifer Petersen constructs a genealogy of how legal conceptions of ""speech"" have transformed over the last century in response to new media technologies. Drawing on media and legal history, Petersen shows that the legal category of speech has varied considerably, evolving from a narrow category of oratory and print publication to a broad, abstract conception encompassing expressive nonverbal actions, algorithms, and data. She examines a series of pivotal US court cases in which new media technologies-such as phonographs, radio, film, and computer code-were integral to this shift. In judicial decisions ranging from the determination that silent films were not a form of speech to the expansion of speech rights to include algorithmic outputs, courts understood speech as mediated through technology. Speech thus became disarticulated from individual speakers. By outlining how legal definitions of speech are indelibly dependent on technology, Petersen demonstrates that future innovations such as artificial intelligence will continue to restructure speech law in ways that threaten to protect corporate and institutional forms of speech over the rights and interests of citizens."

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9781478013600

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Reviews

“What does it mean for speech to be free? This rigorous, counterintuitive history reveals how changes in media technologies have transformed our answers to that question in the law and well beyond. As it shows, media technologies don’t just deliver speech; they model it. And when they do, they change the categories of thought and action through which we live our lives.” -- Fred Turner, author of * The Democratic Surround: Multimedia and American Liberalism from World War II to the Psychedelic Sixties * “At the intersection of legal studies, cultural history, and media history, Jennifer Petersen’s book is a brilliant and groundbreaking study of the ways that modern First Amendment law has been shaped by judicial and cultural responses to the advent of new media technologies.” -- Samantha Barbas, Professor of Law, University at Buffalo School of Law “[How Machines Came to Speak] provides many discussion opportunities—and questions—for anyone interested in the intricacies of free speech theory. Petersen does not claim to resolve the debate but invites readers to ‘rethink some of our fundamental assumptions about speech.’ All readers will benefit from heeding her invitation. Recommended.” -- D. Caristi * Choice *

"“What does it mean for speech to be free? This rigorous, counterintuitive history reveals how changes in media technologies have transformed our answers to that question in the law and well beyond. As it shows, media technologies don’t just deliver speech; they model it. And when they do, they change the categories of thought and action through which we live our lives.” -- Fred Turner, author of * The Democratic Surround: Multimedia and American Liberalism from World War II to the Psychedelic Sixties * “At the intersection of legal studies, cultural history, and media history, Jennifer Petersen’s book is a brilliant and groundbreaking study of the ways that modern First Amendment law has been shaped by judicial and cultural responses to the advent of new media technologies.” -- Samantha Barbas, Professor of Law, University at Buffalo School of Law “[How Machines Came to Speak] provides many discussion opportunities—and questions—for anyone interested in the intricacies of free speech theory. Petersen does not claim to resolve the debate but invites readers to ‘rethink some of our fundamental assumptions about speech.’ All readers will benefit from heeding her invitation. Recommended.” -- D. Caristi * Choice * ""The book not only deftly weaves together an analysis of legal texts but also considers the drafts of judgements as discursive repositories to help substantiate the technocultural context and historical debates that informed them. One of the most interesting . . .  throughlines in the book is in the meta-research on communication theory and research and its in fluence over legal decisions at distinct points of her historiography."" -- Vipulya Chari * H-Sci-Med-Tech, H-Net Reviews *"

What does it mean for speech to be free? This rigorous, counterintuitive history reveals how changes in media technologies have transformed our answers to that question in the law and well beyond. As it shows, media technologies don't just deliver speech. They model it. And when they do, they change the categories of thought and action through which we live our lives. -- Fred Turner, author of * The Democratic Surround: Multimedia and American Liberalism from World War II to the Psychedelic Sixties * At the intersection of legal studies, cultural history, and media history, Jennifer A. Petersen's book is a brilliant and groundbreaking study of the ways that modern First Amendment law has been shaped by judicial and cultural responses to the advent of new media technologies. -- Samantha Barbas, Professor of Law, University at Buffalo School of Law

Author Information

Jennifer Petersen is Associate Professor of Communication in the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California and author of Murder, the Media, and the Politics of Public Feelings: Remembering Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr.

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