What is the relationship between power, information and the rights of individuals? In a decade marked by profound changes – such as the digital revolution and the rise of populisms – and traumatic and very rare events – such as the pandemic and the war – public opinion has undergone constant conditioning.
The limits that political power must respect; the guarantees that are due to information both in the form of the exercise of freedom of expression and the right of the community to be informed; the rights of individuals before the State and in balancing with the rights of other people are the themes at the center of the articles written in the last ten years by Carlo Melzi d’Eril and Giulio Enea Vigevani, lawyers experts in information law and law of the media, and published in Il Sole 24 Ore in its print and online version and in the supplement of the Sunday newspaper.
The contributions are collected in the volume “Potere. Information. Rights. Tales of a troubled decade ”on newsstands with Il Sole 24 Ore for one month from Saturday 10 September for € 12.90 and in bookshops from Friday 23 September for € 16.90.
The articles are divided by themes and proposed in chronological order. Starting from the news episodes from which the individual pieces took their cue, the book intends to analyze the relationships between power, information and the rights of individuals.
“Freedom of expression is considered by all to be indispensable. In an accomplished democracy no one will tell you to fear it. But this is colossal fake news. It is not so. When freedom of expression and, consequently, the right to information, that of news and criticism, go against what we think is right and constructive, we begin to have doubts about the social utility of enjoying a pluralism of voices – writes Ferruccio De Bortoli in the preface of the volume – Pluralism that is never, by its nature, ordered and predictable. When freedom of expression disturbs the stillness of normality, hinders public and private programs, forces us to account for what we do, to be transparent, it is almost certain that it is experienced as a cost, a nuisance.