This timely book explores how the internet and social media have permanently altered the media landscape, enabling new actors to enter the marketplace, and changing the way that news is generated, published and consumed. It examines the importance of citizen journalists, whose newsgathering and publication activities have made them crucial to public discourse and central actors in the communication revolution. Investigating how the internet and social media have enabled citizen journalism to flourish, and what this means for the traditional institutional press, the public sphere, and media freedom, the book demonstrates how communication and legal theory are applied in practice.

A critical examination of the balance between the freedom of the media and the legal protection of privacy, this book examines the struggle to reconcile privacy and freedom of expression in the face of the increasingly sensationalist media, and the relentless advances in technology.

An authoritative yet accessible analysis of the historical development and contemporary scope of press freedoms in America. Freedom of the Press: Rights and Liberties under the Law examines the evolution of press freedom in America, a particularly relevant topic given the controversy over the role of the press in the war in Iraq, as well as the growing concentration of ownership of the press, and the impact of the Internet on traditional journalism. An opening analysis of challenges from recent developments like Internet journalist Matt Drudge's "Drudge Report" illustrates the opportunities and implications of a press operating without the traditional gate-keeping process. A historical overview of philosophical ideas and English traditions precedes an exploration into the judicial, regulatory, social, political, and economic developments that have shaped press freedoms, addressing such issues as libel, free press versus fair trial, and access to courtrooms. A chapter is devoted to the impact of new communication and transmission technology such as videophones and satellites.

Domestic constitutions and courts applying international human rights conventions acknowledge the significance of the mass media for a democratic society, not only by granting special privileges but also by imposing enhanced duties and responsibilities to journalists and media companies. However, the challenges of media convergence, media ownership concentration and the internet have led to legal uncertainty. Should media privileges be maintained, and, if so, how is 'the media' to be defined? To what extent does media freedom as a legal concept also encompass bloggers who have not undertaken journalistic education? And how can a legal distinction be drawn between investigative journalism on the one hand and reporting on purely private matters on the other? To answer these questions, Jan Oster combines doctrinal and conceptual comparative analysis with descriptive and normative theory, and argues in favour of a media freedom principle based on the significance of the media for public discourse.

Featuring specially commissioned chapters from experts in the field of media and communications law, this book provides an authoritative survey of media law from a comparative perspective. The handbook does not simply offer a synopsis of the state of affairs in media law jurisprudence, rather itprovides a better understanding of the forces that generate media rules, norms, and standardsagainst the background of major transformations in the way information is mediated as a result of democratization, economic development, cultural change, globalization and technological innovation. The book addresses a range of issues including: Media Law and Evolving Concepts of Democracy Network neutrality and traffic management Public Service Broadcasting in Europe Interception of Communication and Surveillance in Russia State secrets, leaks and the media A variety of rule-making institutions are considered, including administrative, and judicial entities within and outside government, but also entities such as associations and corporations that generate binding rules. The book assesses the emerging role of supranational economic and political groupings as well asnon-Western models, such as China and India, where cultural attitudes toward media freedoms are often very different. Monroe E. Price is Director of the Center for Global Communication Studies at the Annenberg School for the University of Pennsylvania and Joseph and Sadie Danciger Professor of Law and Director of the Howard M. Squadron Program in Law, Media and Society at the Cardozo School of Law. Stefaan Verhulst is Chief of Research at the Markle Foundation. Previously he was the co-founder and co-director, with Professor Monroe Price, of the Programme in Comparative Media Law and Policy (PCMLP) at Oxford University, as well as senior research fellow at the Centre for Socio Legal Studies. Libby Morgan is the Associate Director of the Center for Global Communication Studies at the Annenberg School for the University of Pennsylvania.

The Internet brings opportunity and peril for media freedom and freedom of expression. It enables new forms of publication and extends the reach of traditional publishers, but its power increases the potential damage of harmful speech and invites state regulation and censorship as well as manipulation by private and commercial interests. In jurisdictions around the world, courts, lawmakers and regulators grapple with these contradictions and challenges in different ways with different goals in mind. The media law reforms they are adopting or considering contain crucial lessons for those forming their own responses or who seek to understand how technology is driving such rapid change in how information and opinion are distributed or restricted. In this book, many of the world's leading authorities examine the emerging landscape of reform in nations with variable political and legal contexts. They analyse developments particularly through the prisms of defamation and media regulation, but also explore the impact of technology on privacy law and national security. Whether as jurists, lawmakers, legal practitioners or scholars, they are at the front lines of a story of epic change in how and why the Internet is changing the nature and raising the stakes of 21st century communication and expression.

War and Press Freedom: The Problem of Prerogative Power is a groundbreaking and provocative study of one of the most perplexing civil liberties issues in American history: What authority does or should the government have to control press coverage and commentary in wartime? First Amendment scholar Jeffery A. Smith shows convincingly that no such extraordinary power exists under the Constitution, and that officials have had to rely on claiming the existence of an autocratic "higher law" of survival. Smith carefully surveys the development of statutory restrictions and military regulations for the news media from the ratification of the Bill of Rights in 1791 through the Gulf War of 1991. He concludes that the armed forces can justify refusal to divulge a narrow range of defense secrets, but that imposing other restrictions is unwise, unnecessary, and unconstitutional. In any event, as electronic communication becomes almost impossible to constrain, soldiers and journalists must learn how to respect each other's obligations in a democratic system.