Censorship: State control of expression

Abstract

Censorship suppresses speech, writing, and other forms of human action involving communication and information flow. It is a complex social system for controlling and prohibiting ideas and practices that are considered unacceptable or threatening to existing powers. From a socio-legal perspective, censorship is both an instrument and a culture. As an instrument, it provides the government a legal or administrative tool for managing information flow in the public domain. In addition to legal regulation, the enforcement of censorship also relies on social disapproval. Like many other forms of social control, censorship is a continuous process of state-society interaction. It requires what Erving Goffman would call a practice of ‘impression management’ by the state or dominant social groups. A censorship system usually has an evolving list of tabooed ideas and issues set by written rules or hidden norms. Censorship is not merely a top-down phenomenon. It includes self-censorship and horizontal censorship and control over other people's views and actions.