Are paid advertisements really free speech?

"Advocacy Advertising and the First Amendment" will be the topic of a lecture at Cornell University by Kathleen Hall Jamieson, the Walter H. Annenberg Dean of the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School for Communication, Monday, Oct. 26, at 5 p.m.

Free and open to the public, the lecture will be presented in the Hollis E. Cornell Auditorium of Goldwin Smith Hall and is sponsored by the Daniel W. Kops Freedom of the Press Fellowship Program.

Jamieson, who is also professor of communication and director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center, is the author or co-author of nine books, including Dirty Politics: Deception, Distraction and Democracy, Packaging the Presidency and Eloquence in an Electronic Age. Her most recent book is Spiral of Cynicism, the Press and the Public Good.

An expert on political campaigns, Jamieson served during the 1996 general election as a commentator on the presidential debates for CBS News, on advertising for The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, and on the campaign for National Public Radio and CNN's Inside Politics. The Presidential Studies Quarterly said of her, "Kathleen Hall Jamieson has evolved into one of the foremost critics of campaign communication because of her insights about past presidential campaigns and because of her hope for the future of public discourse."

The Kops Freedom of the Press Fellowship Program was established in 1990 by Daniel W. Kops, a 1939 graduate of Cornell and former editor of The Cornell Daily Sun, to bring distinguished speakers to Ithaca annually to discuss issues relating to freedom of the press. The Kops Fellowship is hosted by the College of Arts and Sciences in cooperation with the American Studies Program.