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Abstract
Although on election day each vote carries equal weight, in the U.S. there is a
strong correlation between policy and the preferences of the affluent, and a
weak correlation between policy and the preferences of the middle class or the
poor. This state of affairs can result from unequal input into the democratic
process. If a democracy allows unlimited private financing of political
campaigns, then prior to elections wealthy citizens or businesses can gain
greater influence than others on the political discourse. In addition, there is
a danger that elected representatives − who wish to be re-elected
− would decide in ways that serve the interests of their big donors. In
this article, I discuss an important aspect of money's influence on
politics, namely whether corporations should be allowed to participate in the
financing of campaigns. This issue produced intense disagreement over the last
several years, following the U.S. Supreme Court decision which held that
restrictions against corporate campaign finance are unconstitutional since a
corporation's right to freedom of political speech is no less than a
citizen's right to freedom of political speech. Since in my opinion the
Court's position is seriously mistaken, I find it important to look at
the arguments the Court provides and try to refute them.

Modern advertisements contain little information and expose few arguments. They rarely describe the product and its usage or compare it to similar products. Yet, advertisements convey many messages—they attach meaning to products, suggest values, and spread a particular view of life. Advertisements create a failure in the democratic process; through advertising, commercial corporations intervene in the democratic discourse. Citizens are intensively exposed to the consumerist worldview while alternative points of view are scarcely presented in the communicative sphere.But commercial corporations are not legitimate participants in the public discourse in a democracy since they do not represent the political support of citizens. Presently, courts grant advertisements freedom of speech protection based on the importance of providing information for viewers. But by doing this, courts ignore the value suggesting messages prevalent in modern advertisements.For many years the law in the domain of campaign finance has restricted the speech of corporations in order to prevent distortion of the political discourse prior to elections. Similarly, we should allow the State to intervene to repair the failure in the public discourse created by advertisements. The law regarding informative messages and value-suggesting messages contained in advertisements should treat each separately, and advertisers should not be permitted to convey messages of the latter.

In light of the importance of culture for the autonomy, sense of identity, and self-respect of individuals, cultural minorities have a right that their cultures flourish. Since cultural minorities are frequently in a disadvantaged position in the cultural market-place, a commitment to equality implies that the state ought to take steps to assist these minorities in preserving their cultures. This Article examines the ways the mass media can assist cultural minorities in preserving their cultures. For instance, when the media present contents that relate to the cultures of minorities, individual members of the minority group are exposed to their culture; media designated for cultural groups facilitate dialogue between group members, thus enabling the cultural group to determine which parts of its culture to retain and which parts to change. With that said, contemporary media frequently provide insufficient cultural contents due to the influence of commercial operational logic. This Article examines why the motivation for profit leads to under-production of cultural materials for minorities and to insufficient inclusion of cultural minorities in the public discourse. It is argued that the inequality caused by the media—which provide minorities with too little of the cultural contents so pertinent to the realization of their right to culture—merits corrective intervention. The Article examines possible forms of State intervention with the media on behalf of cultural minorities, taking into consideration that such intervention is a sensitive issue, since it has ramifications concerning the scope of the freedom of the press. Accordingly, it is argued that the State ought to be permitted to create legislation which intervenes, mainly by means of subsidies and structural regulation, to improve the manner in which the media fulfill their roles in a multicultural democracy. In contrast, there should be sparse use of conditionality in the issue of licenses for media operators.