Cite as: 518 U. S. 727 (1996)
Opinion of Kennedy, J.
not changed in streets and parks as they once were. To an increasing degree, the more significant interchanges of ideas and shaping of public consciousness occur in mass and electronic media. Cf. United States v. Kokinda, 497 U. S. 720, 737 (1990) (Kennedy, J., concurring in judgment). The extent of public entitlement to participate in those means of communication may be changed as technologies change; and in expanding those entitlements the Government has no greater right to discriminate on suspect grounds than it does when it effects a ban on speech against the backdrop of the entitlements to which we have been more accustomed. It contravenes the First Amendment to give Government a general license to single out some categories of speech for lesser protection so long as it stops short of viewpoint discrimination.
D
The Government advances a different argument for not applying strict scrutiny in these cases. The nature of access channels to one side, it argues the nature of the speech in question—indecent broadcast (or cablecast)—is subject to the lower standard of review it contends was applied in FCC v. Pacifica Foundation, 438 U. S. 726, 748 (1978) (upholding an FCC order declaring the radio broadcast of indecent speech during daytime hours to be sanctionable).
Pacifica did not purport, however, to apply a special standard for indecent broadcasting. Emphasizing the narrowness of its holding, the Court in Pacifica conducted a context-specific analysis of the FCC's restriction on indecent programming during daytime hours. See id., at 750. See also Sable Communications, 492 U. S., at 127-128 (underscoring the narrowness of Pacifica). It relied on the general rule that "broadcasting . . . has received the most limited First Amendment protection." 438 U. S., at 748. We already have rejected the application of this lower broadcast standard of review to infringements on the liberties of cable operators, even though they control an important communica-
803
Page: Index Previous 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007