New Explorations On Marketplace Of Ideas

This article illustrated the importance of the Marketplace of Ideas from the social development perspective and reconstructed the elements and structure of the Marketplace of Ideas on the basis of previous research, which are the standpoints of "marketplace of ideas" metaphors from modern Western liberalism thinkers John Milton, John Stuart Mill, the U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., and the jurists Richard Posner. From which the author summarized two shortcomings on traditional theory:1. Confusion on the concept model between commodity markets and the marketplace of ideas; 2. Omitting the role of "audience" in the concept of the marketplace of ideas.Around the lacks of traditional theory, the author started from the general observation to make a simple model of market to analysis human, ideas, medias and the interactions between these elements, analyzing two market failures in classical concept of marketplace of idea, which are the negative externalities and the monopoly. In the analysis to the negative externalities, the author explains the failures in two conditions:1. The negative impact on young audiences from the obscenity; 2. Commercial fraud to the elders; Along with the response measures, the author pointed out that the premise of the intervention should be:when a particular audience are in the lack of rational capacity. In the analysis of administrative intervention and the monopoly, through the comparison between the traditional and new media, the author described the ruling method of the elite in traditional days, by suppressing or monopoly the marketplace, and the challenge brought by the new media to the ruling elite.The paper further analyzed the impact to the market factors on media changing, including the promoting from the technological innovations to the forming of new features of the media, the protection to the constitutional rights-freedom of expression from the new media and the power shown by the "group rationality"In the conclusion of this paper, the author discussed the role of media changing driven by the technological civilization to the political reform, and the significance of which when combined the "harmonious society" theories from the ruling party.