{"id":282,"date":"2015-01-26T20:31:54","date_gmt":"2015-01-26T20:31:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/cstarger\/?p=282"},"modified":"2022-06-11T20:14:47","modified_gmt":"2022-06-11T20:14:47","slug":"three-looks-at-fighting-words-and-hostile-audiences","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/cstarger\/2015\/01\/26\/three-looks-at-fighting-words-and-hostile-audiences\/","title":{"rendered":"Three Looks at Fighting Words and Hostile Audiences"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over the weekend, law student and PhD candidate Ryan Whalen<\/a> posted\u00a0a fascinating map of the Law Prof Twitter Network<\/a>. Ryan\u00a0created the map by crunching data compiled by Prof. Bridget Crawford over at the Faculty Lounge<\/a>. The image is massive, striking and thoroughly fun to explore. In fact, the map provided such\u00a0infectious fun that it\u00a0inspired me to experiment with creating a Very Large Map of my own. Today I present the results of that experiment. It\u00a0constitutes the third look in a\u00a0series of three looks\u00a0at Supreme Court’s fighting words\/hostile audiences\u00a0doctrine.<\/p>\n

As I’ve previously discussed<\/a>, I am teaching First Amendment law this\u00a0semester using the \u00a0Sullivan & Feldman textbook. They devote Section 3 of Chapter 1 to “Fighting Words and Hostile Audiences.” For purposes of the experiment, I\u00a0consider the cases\u00a0collected\u00a0in this section\u00a0as a “canonical.” The question for the day is: how does a network approach fare at re-creating the canonical case list?<\/p>\n

Let’s start with the raw data. This section of the textbook has three main cases — Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire<\/em> (1942), Feiner v. New York<\/em> (1951), and Cohen v. California<\/em> (1971). It also has eight squib cases — Gooding v. Wilson<\/em> (1972), Texas v. Johnson<\/em> (1989), Cantwell v. Connecticut<\/em> (1940), Terminiello v. Chicago<\/em> (1949), Edwards v. South Carolina<\/em> (1963), Cox v. Louisiana<\/em> (1965), Kunz v. New York<\/em> (1951) and Forsyth County, Georgia v. Nationalist Movement<\/em> (1992).<\/p>\n

For our\u00a0first look,\u00a0consider the two-degree network linking the newest main case (Cohen<\/em>) to the oldest main case (Chaplinsky<\/em>). Using a Spaeth<\/em> projection\/genealogy filter<\/a>, it looks like this:<\/p>\n

\"Cohen_to_Chaplinsky_2_degree_genealogy\"<\/a><\/p>\n

As usual, blue upward-facing triangles indicate Spaeth-coded “liberal” decisions where\u00a0the First Amendment “won” over state law\/conviction suppressing speech. Red downward-facing triangles indicate Spaeth-coded “conservative” decisions where the First Amendment “lost.” Note that Chaplinsky<\/em> is green because, like all pre-1948 cases,\u00a0it does not have a\u00a0Spaeth<\/em> code. Since\u00a0Chaplinsky<\/em>\u00a0upheld a conviction for speech (fighting words!), it should considered\u00a0as a “conservative\u00a0decision.<\/p>\n

This map shows that the two-degree network connecting Cohen<\/em> to Chaplinsky<\/em> picks up the third main case in the section (Feiner<\/em>) as well as three of the squibs (Terminiello<\/em>, Edwards<\/em>, and Cox<\/em>). This is not too bad. The map also reveals\u00a0that Sullivan & Feldman did not include as squibs four other cases cited by\u00a0Cohen<\/em>, which in turn cited Chaplinsky<\/em>\u00a0(Winters<\/em>, Giboney<\/em>, Roth<\/em> and Street<\/em>). Thus, we can say this simple network is both under- and over- inclusive when compared with the canonical list.<\/p>\n

Now let’s change up the network a little. Instead of main cases (Chaplinsky<\/em> and Cohen<\/em>), let’s use the earliest and latest latest squibs\u00a0to anchor the network. Using a Spaeth<\/em> projection without a genealogy filter, this is what the two-degree network linking Forsyth County<\/em> (1992) to Cantwell<\/em> (1940) looks like:<\/p>\n

\"Forsyth_to_Chaplinksky_2_degree\"<\/a>\u00a0The result here is interesting. Although the Forsyth County<\/em>->Cantwell<\/em> two-degree network picks up more cases than the Cohen<\/em>->Chaplinsky<\/em> network (16 versus 10), these cases are less relevant to the canonical list. Specifically, this second network only included two additional canonical cases (Gooding<\/em> and Terminiello<\/em>). To me, this vindicates Sullivan & Feldman’s choice of main versus squib cases. In other words, Cohen<\/em>\u00a0really is more central to the doctrine at issue. The proof is that Cohen<\/em> cites more cases now deemed as directly relevant.<\/p>\n

Finally, let’s go Very Large. This is the three-degree network connecting Forsyth County<\/em> to Cantwell<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"Forsyth_to_Cantwell_very_large\"<\/a><\/p>\n

To get a better look, click on the image. Although the image is still pretty small and does not yet permit\u00a0zooming in (software still in development!), you can hover your mouse over cases to see their names and even link to the underlying opinions.<\/p>\n

The three degree network is indeed Very Large — at least from a doctrinal point of view. It contains\u00a0109 cases. Given this, it perhaps comes as no surprise that every single one of the canonical cases from Sullivan and Feldman’s list does get swept into the network. All eleven cases plus a whole lot more!<\/p>\n

Although I confess that the main impetus for this experiment was to create a pretty picture, I\u00a0do think the massive over-inclusiveness of this network is independently significant. I have an intuition that the\u00a0relevant cases in a doctrinal line will\u00a0almost always exist within\u00a0three degrees of citation to each other. This seems to back up that intuition. Of course, I will need to do much more work to properly test this hypothesis. Perhaps the “casebook as canonical list” method explored\u00a0in this\u00a0post provides a potential framework to conduct a more rigorous investigation.<\/p>\n

As always, reader thoughts are welcome!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over the weekend, law student and PhD candidate Ryan Whalen posted\u00a0a fascinating map of the Law Prof Twitter Network. Ryan\u00a0created the map by crunching data compiled by Prof. Bridget Crawford over at the Faculty Lounge. The image is massive, striking … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":400,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/cstarger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/cstarger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/cstarger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/cstarger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/400"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/cstarger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/cstarger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":873,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/cstarger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282\/revisions\/873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/cstarger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/cstarger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/cstarger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}