Award Name

Sophomore Award Winner

Award Date

4-27-2017

Description/Abstract

“Radio Free Europe and the Right to be Informed: National Sovereignty and Freedom of Information During the Cold War” asks if a free flow of international information can ever threaten national sovereignty. Is it a human right to impart information “regardless of frontiers,” or was this phrase an instrument of American foreign policy that has been enshrined as a universal human right? This paper seeks to answer these questions by considering Radio Free Europe, an American radio station that broadcast from Western Europe into Soviet satellite states for the duration of the Cold War. It concludes that a free flow of truthful information “regardless of frontiers” is a human right because individuals worldwide have the right to be informed. This research participates in a dialogue not only about Cold War era broadcasting, human rights, and national sovereignty, but about the way in which a free press should serve a just society.

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