Navigating Pressures and Protecting Free Speech: Public Views and the Future of Media Freedom
By: Michelle Amazeen
Following recent government pressure to remove Jimmy Kimmel from his ABC late-night show over his politically charged remarks about the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, Boston University’s Communication Research Center (CRC) conducted a nationwide survey to gauge Americans’ views on government censorship and the First Amendment.
The survey revealed a clear majority (74%) supports First Amendment protections shielding private media from government censorship, except in extreme cases like inciting violence. Conversely, only 19% agree the federal government should threaten media companies with legal consequences over content.
To better understand these findings, I turned to two CRC experts: Dr. Deborah L. Jaramillo, Professor of Film and Television and director of the Film and Television Studies Program at the College of Communication (COM), and Dr. Morgan Weiland, Assistant Professor of Communication Law in COM’s Department of Mass Communication, Advertising, and Public Relations.
Morgan, you noted that these survey findings suggest that FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr’s recent warnings to ABC regarding Jimmy Kimmel’s comments—actions you described as jawboning or what other experts term ‘censorship by proxy,’ where the government pressures private entities to restrict speech—are likely unpopular not just with the general American public, but also among Republicans. Could you expand on this? Why is this happening despite its unpopularity, and what can the public do?
Weiland: The Trump administration's moves with respect to the press are not surprising. Many of them were spelled out in Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation's document that appears to inform the Trump administration's actions. Consider that before he was FCC Commissioner, Brendan Carr wrote the Project 2025 chapter on the FCC.
To the extent that the administration's policy changes and attacks on the press cut against First Amendment principles, our survey suggests that they would be unpopular across the political spectrum. Majorities of survey respondents told us that they oppose government censorship and support content neutrality, both of which are core normative and -- at least for now -- doctrinal First Amendment free speech principles.
Deborah, you and I previously discussed incidents where media content was moderated through industry self-regulation, such as Whoopi Goldberg’s comments on ABC’s The View and Joe Rogan on Spotify. Similarly, radio airwaves were rid of Father Coughlin in 1940, and Trump was banned from Twitter in 2021. How is the current situation different? Couldn’t media companies just be making editorial decisions aligned with their corporate interests?
Jaramillo: I appreciate this question because it pushes us to think about the multiple stakeholders involved in the issue and the circumstances that trigger a decision like ABC’s. Media companies always make decisions in their corporate interests, but in response to what specific external factors?
First, we have Trump’s vocal hatred of Kimmel and, second, as Morgan mentioned above, an FCC chair who walks in lockstep with the president and, in doing so, does not hesitate to dangle its power to approve mergers in front of Disney, Sinclar, and Nexstar. Third, the loosening of media ownership rules in the 1990s and early 2000s has resulted in station groups like Sinclair wielding more power over networks than any single affiliate could. The fourth factor, the assassination of Kirk, was the tripwire. Everyone right, left, and center had to ignore his politics and agree that murder is bad, lest they be accused of, at best, bad taste, and at worst, encouraging political violence.
Public figures, comedians included, were vulnerable because while these horrific moments require reflection and discussion, they more often than not are hijacked by calls for simplistic narratives. The confluence of all of these factors made it easy for Carr
to run the FCC playbook and try to force ABC’s hand.
Are these survey findings about television broadcasting applicable to other media?
Jaramillo: According to the poll 67% of respondents favor government-required content warnings for indecent or offensive material, and 45% support government efforts to protect viewers from such content, but just 29% believe the government should intervene when viewers are offended by violent, indecent, or political television content.
I often tell my students that when they study television they wind up studying the government, the public’s relationship with the government, and the public’s attitudes toward free speech. Which sectors of our society do we believe deserve speech protections? Why are we more accepting of government intervention in cultural arenas than in health care, particularly when children are usually held up to be the most vulnerable in both of these areas?
Looking historically, concerns about media control have persisted for nearly a century. Representative Luther Johnson of Texas warned before the Radio Act of 1927:
American thought and American politics will be largely at the mercy of those who operate these stations, for publicity is the most powerful weapon that can be wielded in a republic. And when such a weapon is placed in the hands of one person, or a single selfish group is permitted to either tacitly or otherwise acquire ownership or dominate these broadcasting stations throughout the country, then woe be to those who dare to differ with them. It will be impossible to compete with them in reaching the ears of the American people.
Today media consolidation continues with many major properties owned by billionaires: Elon Musk (Twitter/X, Starlink), David Zaslav (CBS News, TikTok), Jeff Bezos (The Washington Post), Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong (The Los Angeles Times), and even the President of the United States with TruthSocial.
What do these polling results imply for the current US media landscape? What does it mean if private media companies comply in advance with authoritarian pressures? Is there any hope?
Weiland: I want to step back and take a long view on some of the trends that you highlighted to put them in historical context -- and hopefully end on a somewhat positive note. One of the reasons there was so much exuberance in the early 2000s about the internet was precisely that it would solve the problem of media consolidation that plagued the American media system during the latter half of the twentieth century.
To be sure, the internet and the social media companies that have come to dominate it ended up replicating a version of the media consolidation problems we saw in the 20th century, due in part, as my research shows, to legal decisions that effectively foreclosed on regulation and allowed for "self-regulation" of online speech. But the critique still stands. And the stakes of that critique are even higher today. It is much easier for the government to intimidate a consolidated media landscape that is dependent on the FCC and FTC for mergers and other support, and for which their media offerings are a sliver of their overall corporate portfolios.
But the survey shows that the public's values point in the direction of policy solutions. If the public dislikes censorship and supports content neutrality, then supporting a diverse array of independent media outlets could provide one solution. It's much harder for the government to play wack-a-mole with a diverse, diffuse, and disobedient press.
Jaramillo: When the radio networks moved into television, they set out to assert the dominance of the commercial paradigm and to use the prohibitive expense of TV production and broadcasting to their advantage. In other words, they didn’t want TV to be radio, which was cheaper and, after much debate, made space for noncommercial broadcasters.
Commercial TV broadcasting began in 1946, and while noncommercial stations did crop up slowly, we did not have legislation to create national public broadcasting until 1967. The systematic marginalization of noncommercial TV and the failure to insulate the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s financial health from political pressure has meant that how we see TV–what we love, what we hate, what we find boring, how our days are broken up–has been determined by the logics of corporate media.
If I could add another question to the poll, I would want to know how many people are in favor of a fully taxpayer-funded, independent public broadcasting system. Not what we had until recently, but an actual, financially secure public broadcasting system. If, as our poll indicates, the majority of Republicans and Democrats are in favor of the government protecting TV viewers, then we need to understand if or whether that protection goes beyond content warnings. Protection is also about access to information that ensures a robust citizenry and access to entertainment unencumbered by commercial constraints.
In other words, we can’t have a thorough discussion of corporate media’s capitulation to an authoritarian regime without also interrogating the ways our government and the major media companies weakened the information ecosystem at the start, not just by limiting viable alternatives but by foreclosing the public’s ability to imagine a television system not dominated by NBC, CBS, and ABC (or, in today’s media landscape, Disney, Comcast, Warner, etc.). Although Kimmel is a less-than-ideal cause (does no one remember The Man Show?), I’m hopeful the activism that has grown because of the blatant show of corruption will continue well beyond his next jab at Trump.
As our experts noted, the recent survey confirms broad public opposition to government censorship and strong support for First Amendment protections across political lines. While media consolidation and political pressures pose real challenges, the public’s commitment to free expression offers a foundation of hope. By staying vigilant and fostering diverse voices, we can work toward a media landscape that truly supports democracy and open dialogue.
