Page 151 - Historical Dictionary of Political Communication in the United States

140
SUPREME COURT JUSTICES
in which they are working. Then they shape and direct their clients' messages
to appeal to the desired audience and to mobilize it to take the desired action.
Because of the observed effectiveness of emotional appeals, these messages have
been increasingly oriented away from reason and toward emotion, a fact that,
over time, produced a new style of political dialogue in countries like the United
States, where strategic communication is widely practiced. Elements of this new
style of dialogue include high expectations for action, a short political attention
span, and a tendency to see political issues in oversimplified terms, none of
which bodes especially well for sustaining a meaningful democratic political
culture.
SOURCE: Jarol B. Manheim, Strategic Public Diplomacy and American Foreign Policy,
1993.
Jarol B. Manheim

SUPREME COURT JUSTICES. See Hugo Black; Louis Brandeis; William J.
Brennan, Jr.; Warren Burger; William O. Douglas; William H. Rehnquist.

SYMBOLIC SPEECH. Recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions have extended
First Amendment protection to "expressive conduct"—conduct involving ac-
tions rather than words—used in such a way as to make political/social state-
ments. In a 5-4 ruling in Texas v. Johnson (410 U.S. 397), the Court overturned
the guilty verdict on a flag-burning case. Congress immediately answered this
unpopular ruling by passing a federal law that criminalized physical mutilation
of the U.S. flag. Protesters in New York and Seattle tested this law by burning
flags and were arrested. In 1990 the same 5 ^ majority that had overturned the
conviction in Texas v. Johnson declared the law unconstitutional. Subsequent
efforts to adopt a constitutional amendment to ban flag burning fell short in both
the House and the Senate.
The opposite result had occurred in U.S. v. O'Brien (391 U.S. 367) two
decades earlier in a case involving draft card burning. Here, the Court ruled that
substantial non-First Amendment government interests were at stake, specifi-
cally, the need for speedy military induction in wartime. Using this reasoning,
the Court considered this symbolic speech case content neutral, whereas Texas
v. Johnson was content-based and hence less susceptible to government prohi-
bition. A similar decision in Tinker v. Des Moines (393 U.S. 503) upheld the
right of schoolchildren to wear black armbands to protest U.S. involvement in
Vietnam.
Another form of symbolic speech is the protest march or peaceful demon-
stration, which is specifically protected under the First Amendment.
Symbolic speech thus enjoys considerable protection but is far from absolute
as a right. To strike a police officer might be an expression of political protest,
but it would not likely be ruled protectable symbolic speech. A number of