The eleven articles in this collection explore various aspects of freedom of speech. Topics include the lack of knowledge on the part of many judges regarding the complex act of communication; the legislatures and free speech in colonial Connecticut and Rhode Island; contributions of sixteenth century Anabaptist heretics to First Amendment freedoms; the current state of parliamentary members' right to free speech weighed against the Parliamentary body's right to retain confidential information; Spinoza's ideas on freedom of thought and speech; implications for freedom of speech of Herbert Marcuse's theory of freedom; the Supreme Court and the First Amendment, 1976-1977; minority ownership of broadcast stations; the Labadie free-speech collection, the largest such collection in the United States; and a computer-assisted content analysis of the decisions of Justice William O. Douglas on the issues of obscenity and pornography. The volume concludes with a bibliography of materials published in July 1976 through June 1977 that deal with freedom of speech. (GW)