The Study Of The Conflicts And Coordination Between The Privacy Right Of Citizens And The Press Freedom In The Internet Era

With the advent of networking, profound changes have been witnessed in the media environment and the media ecology, in which information reveals the propagating characteristics of real time, diversification and convenience. However, as news media diminishes the gap between internet and real life, and achieves tridimensional coverage by internet technologies, simultaneously providing a more convenient platform for the behavior of violating the private right of citizens, the freedom of news propagation emerges as prominent contradiction against privacy. Both belonging to the fundamental right of citizens, the private right and the press freedom are indispensable elements of the character refinement. When laying too much emphasis on the private right but neglecting the press freedom, the press freedom would be suppressed, afterwards the social environment of public opinion which characters democracy, justice and liberty in the whole society, citizen’s right to know and right of supervision would be deprived, and vice versa, the right of press freedom would be amplified, so that citizens’ private right can be strictly violated but not be called to account. Therefore, there remains various confrontations and conflicts falling between the private right and the press freedom. The personal privacy protection of citizens is the necessary prerequisite to the privacy right, while it turns out be a momentous reflection of social democratization and rule-by-law progress, as well as a full embodiment of citizen’s right to know. On account of the obvious conflicts in the starting- and stand-point of value orientation between the press freedom and the privacy right of citizens, together with the unsound legislation involved-the characteristics of deficient contents, scattered laws and weak approaches-that have been “highlighted”, such contradictions are even more prominent. In the internet era, the journalistic audience, not only transmitters but also receivers, are typical “self-media”, who uphold the free-press environment in the whole society and pay extra attention to privacy. The conflicts falling between the private right of citizens and the press freedom assume incandescence, so correctly handling the relationship between the two items exerts a direct effect on the process of socialist democracy and the rule of law construction, and even more relates to whether journalism can be soundly developed in the network setting or not. Hence, how to harmonize and manage the conflicts between the privacy right and press freedom more efficiently, in the network setting, becomes a current hotspot in academia. In other words, China’s news context in the internet environment should be integrated with news policies, as well as laws of our country, striving for “keeping pace with, being variable with and moving forward with the times”. The private right and the press freedom should be treated and analyzed from a comprehensive, associated and evolutionary perspective. Moreover, the press freedom should be ensured, in the meanwhile, the privacy right of citizens cannot be violated.Instead of the traditional research perspective on "news-reporting mode" research, this dissertation, by using literature review, logical analysis which abandoned content analysis and other research methods, takes the media environment, the media ecology and other theories as the theoretical support. Based on that, current Chinese news context in the internet environment is introduced and integrated with the privacy right, the relevant laws and regulations of the press freedom. First of all, this dissertation summarizes the privacy right, the press freedom and other related literature. On this basis, research background, significance, contents and methods are introduced. Furthermore, this dissertation defines the concepts of citizens, the private right of citizens, the press freedom in China’s context, the distinction between the press freedom and freedom of information and so on. It also generalized and summarized the theory of citizen’s private right in the internet era, such as right to be let alone, general personality right and information control, as well as the theory of the press freedom in the internet era, such as natural rights, popular sovereignty, the fourth estate, the media environment and the media ecology. Moreover, Combined with the practice on the basis of theory research, the privacy right of citizens in the current internet era and the legislation of free-press protection are illustrated in the aspect of laws, regulations and policies. Secondly, this dissertation analyzes and sets forth the characteristics of the private right in the internet era, such as object scope, digital carrier, obligee control, etc. and of the press freedom in the internet era, such as the freedom of press release, the popularization of news subject and the mutual selection between news information, etc. The scopes of citizen’s privacy right and the press freedom are explored. Besides, the associated challenges that both the private right and the press freedom are facing, in light of the ways of tort, the doer, information propagation, “no centralization” and “convenience” in the internet era, are detailed and analyzed. Thirdly, the possible effect factors of conflicts between the privacy right of citizens and the press freedom in the internet era are explored and elaborated from the perspective of the media environment and the media ecology. In addition, the manifestations and causes of conflicts are expounded in the aspect of right restriction, legal status, value orientation, propagation environment, etc. Last but not least, the principles and measures to coordinate the privacy right of citizens in the internet environment with the press freedom are put forward. That is to say, based on the principles of equal rights, benefits measurement, core areas of special treatment, the relationship between personal privacy and public interest would be further processed. The private right on the internet and boundaries of internet speech would be cleared, In the meantime, the legitimacy of restricting the press freedom on the internet would be normalized. The private right would write into the Constitution as a fundamental right; Moderate restrictions are imposed on the internet press freedom through improving laws and regulations; A full play would be given to the self-regulation mechanism of the press industry and establish a thoroughly report-before-action system; the scientific and legal knowledge of citizens would be enhanced and the propaganda remains to be strengthened accordingly. The innovative network would be constructed and the network monitoring has yet to be reinforced as well.