‘It is not good for the person to be alone’: The capabilities approach and the right to communicate

For decades, attempts have been made to define a ‘right to communicate’. The rise of media technologies, which are characterized by abundance of channels and information, interactivity, mobility, and multimediated messaging, has allowed to rethink this right in a context converging traditional media and telecommunications and referring to communicating as an essential human capability. Applying Amartya Sen’s capabilities approach to communications, we argue that communicating is a capability required to realize such functionings as participating in political, cultural, social, educational, and commercial life and is essential to promote belonging to a collective. The ‘negative’ right to free speech should be replaced by a positive right to communicate, which should include free speech, access to information, privacy, and utilization of communications in order to belong to a community.

Amit M Schejter, ‘It is not good for the person to be alone’: The capabilities approach and the right to communicate, Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies (28, 6) pp. . Copyright © 2022. DOI: 10.1177/13548565211022512. Users who receive access to an article through a repository are reminded that the article is protected by copyright and reuse is restricted to non-commercial and no derivative uses. Users may also download and save a local copy of an article accessed in an institutional repository for the user's personal reference. For permission to reuse an article, please follow our Process for Requesting Permission.

Files

Metadata

Work Title ‘It is not good for the person to be alone’: The capabilities approach and the right to communicate
Access
Open Access
Creators
  1. Amit M. Schejter
Keyword
  1. Capabilities
  2. Functionings
  3. Right to communicate
  4. New media
  5. Free speech
License In Copyright (Rights Reserved)
Work Type Article
Publisher
  1. Convergence
Publication Date August 3, 2021
Publisher Identifier (DOI)
  1. https://doi.org/10.1177/13548565211022512
Deposited July 31, 2023

Versions

Analytics

Collections

This resource is currently not in any collection.

Work History

Version 1
published

  • Created
  • Added It_is_not_good_for_the_person_to_be_alone_convergence_r_r_v3.docx
  • Added Creator Amit M. Schejter
  • Published
  • Updated Work Title, Keyword, Publication Date Show Changes
    Work Title
    • ‘It is not good for the person to be alone’<sup>1</sup>: The capabilities approach and the right to communicate
    • ‘It is not good for the person to be alone’: The capabilities approach and the right to communicate
    Keyword
    • Capabilities, Functionings, Right to communicate, New media, Free speech
    Publication Date
    • 2022-12-01
    • 2021-08-03
  • Updated