Media Law

This article explores the recent campaign for à la carte delivery of cable channels on U.S. television. Although the campaign presented “channel choice” as a commonsense economic right, I read policy arguments as a scene of struggle among normative and formative discourses about the viewer. Rather than offering a simple economic freedom, the campaign implicates the viewer and the system of television within a specific cultural politics. I try to synthesize a theoretical and methodological framework for recovering a “cultural life” of communication policy making. Following Foucauldian cultural policy studies and actor-network theory, I emphasize the symbolic, performative, and processual dimensions of media regulation as well as the contingency of the viewer's political and economic identity within regulated media systems.

Facing a digital media system, European public service broadcasters have encountered increasing scrutiny from both competitors and regulators. As these institutions have ventured onto media platforms very unlike traditional broadcast radio and television, discussions about the scope of their activities have flourished. The case of the internet clearly illustrates the emerging challenges. How have public service broadcasters approached the internet? How do regulatory frameworks relate to the wider remits? Is it public service media online? This article presents a comparative study of three Western European mainly publicly funded broadcasters' activities on the internet, their arguments in support of them, the role of competitors, and actual regulatory frameworks they relate to. It scrutinizes how different forms of regulations affect the developments. Based on the findings, the article outlines remaining problematic issues for national regulation of public broadcasters' online services and suggests how researches might get a better grasp of public service media online. Downloaded from 1949. The ARD provides radio channels, one nationwide television channel (Das Erste), and some auxiliary television channels. In contrast to the two other cases, the ARD offers a limited amount of advertising on its core channels. The German television market-totalling more than 80 million viewers-is often described as the most advanced in Europe. The ARD and its member organizations are complemented by a second public broadcaster, the ZDF, operating a national television channel. 1 Key private actors include the RTL group and ProSiebenSat1. In 2005, the ARD's total market share was short of 30% in television and 55% in radio (ARD 2005).

The rise of automated journalism—the algorithmically driven conversion of structured data into news stories—presents a range of potentialities and pitfalls for news organizations. Chief among the potential legal hazards is one issue that has yet to be explored in journalism studies: the possibility that algorithms could produce libelous news content. Although the scenario may seem far-fetched, a review of legal cases involving algorithms and libel suggests that news organizations must seriously consider legal liability as they develop and deploy newswriting bots. Drawing on the American libel law framework, we outline two key issues to consider: (a) the complicated matter of determining fault in a case of algorithm-based libel, and (b) the inability of news organizations to adopt defenses similar to those used by Google and other providers of algorithmic content. These concerns are discussed in light of broader trends of automation and artificial intelligence in the media and information environment.

This study critiques and analyses the meaning and design of the term “public interest” as it has been constructed in commercial television policy in Israel. Its main thesis is that the term serves Israeli policymakers to achieve economic goals. This endpoint marks the transition the public interest consideration has undergone from its initial identification with national and state goals to its subordination to economic interests, in a particular competition. The combination of the neoliberal ideology that has taken over Israeli policymaking since the 1980s, with the prominence of large corporations in the policymaking process, has contributed largely to this outcome.

This article presents a study of the implementation of new elements of media governance in the UK, Germany, and Norway. Seeking to amend the existing models, the three states have introduced different versions of so-called ''public value tests'' to assess the relevance, market impact, and cost/value of any new public service. The cases represent a meeting of national and supranational actors struggling to fit a staple of media policy into novel settings, developing new methods in the process. In discussing the development and organization of the tests, substantial differences are identified within a shared framework. Scrutinizing the specific implementations of the tests, it is argued that the actors involved, the measures, as well as the scopes vary across the cases.

Today, the black sheep lays exposed, the black sheep can be spotted from a far, with its long horns hovering above the white sheep, and the shepherd does not take long to realize that this black sheep is not a saint, that the black sheep is a tool used by the mighty to oppress the poor and normal citizens. The black sheep is a secret weapon used by the powerful and irresponsible politicians, those who have refused to be held accountable, and those who believe that they own the world

Professor Braman introduces the first issue of the journal with an exploration of the definition, scope, and relevance of the concept of "information policy." She sets forth the five criteria which define it as a coherent field of study, and notes the timeliness of its having a journal, as information policy increasingly shapes the world in which we live.

This essay deals with the question of whether the right of journalists not to disclose their sources should be extended so as to cover the various ‘citizen journalists’ of the New Media. After expounding some jurisprudential attempts to confront this issue in the USA and after tracing the restrictive tendencies in the available instruments of the Council of Europe, we examine and then criticize a recent attempt to escape the problem through focusing on the ‘source’ rather than on the ‘journalist’. Returning back to the traditional context of the debate, in the last section of our essay we propose an enlargement of the traditional conception of the ‘journalist’, in order to provide protection to all persons who disseminate information to the general public through the use of New Media, on condition that these persons had the intent to do so (i.e. to disseminate information) already at the inception of the information-gathering process.

A law was implemented in Georgia in 2011 that required all foreign films to be shown with Georgian state language dubbing or subtitling. At that time, Russian was the default language of film showings. A year later, the largest movie theater in Tbilisi was fined for showing films in Russian language without Georgian state language subtitling or dubbing. This fine, however, had little effect on film-showing practices. I describe how media- language politics involved collaboration among social actors in the Georgian Ministry of Culture, the movie theater industry, and the film-dubbing industry. To do so, I develop the concept of dormant law: a mostly unenforced hard law that codifies aspirational condi- tions. Through the possibility of selective activation, dormant law functions as a latent instrument of politics. In political and popular discourse during President Saakashvili’s era (2004–2013), social actors framed Russian as a potentially hazardous symbolic re- source embedded in infrastructure, whereas they framed English as either harmless or enriching to “Georgianness.” In film-language debates, citizens and politicians reflected on the meanings of “international” languages, in contrast with Georgian. The Film Law manifested a hierarchy of social value in which English and Russian were competing codes, iconic of possible future Georgian modernities.

With the advent of the internet and increasing circulation of hate speech, and ma- terial that has been linked to public order disturbances, there has been a shift in the legal discourse around hate speech. What has emerged, especially post the striking down of section 66A of the Information Technology Act, are categories such as ‘objectionable’, ‘provocative’ content. The focus has shifted from the con- tent itself, what it says, and the intention of the author, to being able to pre-empt the circulation of such material. Law is increasingly invoked to prevent speech (through prior restraint) rather than post facto investigation and prosecutions.
This in turn has given rise to a range of institutional mechanisms such as monitoring labs that are now part of policing practice. Additionally, civil society organizations are now collaborating with police to help trigger mechanisms to take content off internet platforms. Increasingly it is through keywords and al- gorithmic searches that the category of hate speech has been defined rather than traditional legal doctrine. In the words of Lawrence Lessig, code plays the role of law, and the architecture of the internet becomes policy.
This paper will examine the issues outlined above relying heavily on a series of interviews with lawyers, policy analysts, journalists, academics, civil society ac- tivists, and police personnel conducted in Delhi, Bengaluru, Mumbai and Pune. Published in Culture Unbound, Journal of Current Cultural Research, Vol. 10, Issue 3, 2018, 388-404.

Public service broadcasters across Europe are venturing into the digital world, launching niche TV channels, building extensive websites, developing commercial services, entering into partnerships with external actors, and exploring new ways to reach users, whether its through smart phone apps or screens in public spaces. Such endeavours intensify fundamental discussions about what we need public service media institutions for. These are complex discussions, building on history, encompassing new technology, and involving a range of strong stakeholders. Recently, the so-called public value test has emerged as the focal point for these discussions. As a detailed regulatory scheme to measure the public worth and possible market impact of planned publicly funded media services, the public value test is causing controversy across Europe. This collection of short essays from academics, regulators, public broadcasters and private media representatives, provides thought-provoking perspectives on the state of play of public value tests in a range of European states. In so doing, the book is a topical intervention in the ongoing debate about the future of our media systems.


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Contents:

Editors’ preface

Hallvard Moe, Karen Donders
Ex Ante Tests in Europe. From Diverging Perspectives to Infinite Conclusions

Tim Raats, Caroline Pauwels
In Search of the Holy Grail? Comparative Analysis in Public Broadcasting Research

Karen Donders
The Public Value Test. A Reasoned Response or Panic Reaction?

Ross Biggam
Ex Ante Regulations, the EU and its Member States. Back to Brussels?

Richard Collins
Public Value, the BBC and Humpty Dumpty Words – does Public Value Management Mean What it Says?

Irini Katsirea
The Three-step Test. Three Steps Forwards or Backwards for Public Service Broadcasting in Germany?

Renate Dörr
The ZDF Three-step Test. A Dynamic Tool of Governance

Stoyan Radoslavov, Barbara Thomass
ZDF’s Three-step Test as a Societal Debate about the Future of Public Service Broadcasting

Marie Therese Lilleborge
The Public Service Remit in Norway: What’s In and What’s Out?

Hilde Thoresen, Erik Bolstad
Ex Ante Limits Public Broadcasting and Gives the Public Less Attractive Services

Erik Nordahl Svendsen
Two Steps Towards a Public Value Test. Danish Public Service Broadcasting Between Two Lines of Control

Nina Wormbs
Swedish Pre-screening of New Services. Treading Lightly

Jo Bardoel, Marit Vochteloo
Dutch Public Service Broadcasting Between Bureaucratic Burden and Political Choice. Implementing the Amsterdam Test in the Netherlands

Herman Wolswinkel
Publishers’ Fight for Fair Competition in the Digital Era

Hilde Van den Bulck
Ex Ante Test in Flanders. Making Ends Meet?

Ben Appel
Long Live the Ex Ante Test. The Ex Ante Test Is Dead!

Benedetta Brevini
Ex Ante Assessments for Public Broadcasters in Southern Europe. Delayed Europeanization?

This article analyzes proceedings of the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council as a discourse on tensions between creative freedom and social responsibility. While scholarship on censorship emphasizes the productive and constructive dimensions of prohibitive regulation, this article explores the imbrications of a more permissive style of regulation and its targets. The council’s administration of various self-regulatory codes tends to limit the potential overreach of social responsibility provisions. In particular, its reading practices allow remarkable authority to the coherence and integrity of screen realities. Ultimately, this weight on the “realistic” suggests the discursive and institutional complexity of liberalization. Rather than a simple movement from active intervention to passive permission, or a simple recognition of an already-formed creative freedom, the council follows a particular construction of creative freedom—produced in readings that actively exclude specters of regulable irresponsibility, and that resonate provocatively with the “realism” mobilized in producers’ claims to creative status.

This article considers the rationales for, and techniques used to promote, media pluralism. It examines why structural regulation is so controversial, with specific reference to the uncertainties surrounding cause and effect in the media field and the technical and economic complexity of media markets. The paper then considers how UK strategy in the field has evolved over the last thirty years, increasingly reliant on the 'media plurality' test incorporated in the Enterprise Act 2002. It suggests that a radical re-appraisal of the test is necessary in light of the perceived risk of political intervention and the length and uncertainty surrounding the two investigations that have taken place to date. The paper examines the innovative 'share of reference' test developed by Ofcom in the News Corporation/BSkyB takeover bid and contrasts it with techniques employed in the United States and a number of European countries. It suggests that, of the various forms of measurement that can be employed in this context, consumer exposure appears best able to address converging media markets and provide, an admittedly indirect, indication of media influence. It similarly suggests that fixed ownership limits, though currently out of fashion, provide a relatively clear and effective form of control, reducing potential concerns over agency capture and political influence. It concludes by identifying certain areas where further coordinated research is desirable and notes the potential role that could be played by the European Union in this context.

African cartoonists do not have the right to ridicule and offend political leaders. As a result, cartoons that deterritorialize African leaders by taking them out of their traditional zones of power and comfort, and place them in absurd, imaginary cartoon ‘realities’ for purposes of criticism, are often met with censorious judicial and extra-judicial measures. These efforts are aimed at reterritorializing and rehabilitating the ‘tarnished’ images of the powerful and enable them to control their media images. In response to these pressures, many Sub-Saharan African cartoonists engage in symbolic ‘space shifting’. This is the phenomenon whereby critical commentary and political cartoons are deterritorialized or transferred from real space to cyberspace, the Internet and social media sites, for purposes of escaping censorship. This study focuses on a select group of cartoons and cartoonists who transferred their work from real space to cyberspace in a bid to escape censorship and political pressure.

THE VIRTUOUS JOURNALIST 10 (1987) (quoting TheodoreRoosevelt, Address on the Laying of the Cornerstone of the House Office Building (Apr. 14, 1906)). 2. One basic-reporting textbook describes investigative reporting as follows: "Any good reporting is investigative reporting. But the term has come to mean reporting in depth to reveal public or private behavior that otherwise might go unseen-usually criminal or antisocial behavior, but not always." MITCHELL V. CHARNLEY & BLAIR CHARNLEY, REPORTING 337 (4th ed. 1979). James King and Frederick Muto note that investigativejournalism is intrinsic to the "new journalism," i.e., journalism "through which reporters attempt to use the communications media to influence society directly." James E. King & Frederick T. Muto, Compensatory Damages for Newsgatherer Torts: Toward a Workable Standard, 14 U.C. DAVIS L. REV. 919, 919 n.1 (1981). 3. PHILIP MEYER, ETHICAL JOURNALiSM 78 (1987). 4. The effectiveness of undercover investigative reporting stems from the fact that "[a] reporter whose identity is not known ... is uninhibited, has no worry about offending news sources, and has the clandestine privilege of observing news figures when they are off guard." CHARNLEY & CHARNLEY, supra note 2, at 344-45. 5. Charniley and Charnley provide examples of the uses of undercover or "infiltration" reporting and note that the results of undercover newsgathering "are almost always admired and frequently of high public service." Id. at 337. Undercover newsgathering is just one of the tools of the investigative reporter. Regardless of the method used, investigative reporting is a powerful tool for social reform. See Estes v. Texas, 381 U.S. 532, 539 (1965) ("The free press has been a mighty catalyst in awakening public interest in governmental affairs, exposing corruption among public officers and employees and generally informing the citizenry of public events and occurrences .... .");

Somalia is often described as ‘lawless’ or ‘the world’s most failed state’, a charac- terization that overlooks the way law and governance actually works in the absence of a capable central government. This article will explore the role of xeer law, or customary law, in regulating media, including both older media, such as poetry, and newer media, such as mobile phones, in Somalia’s complex legal environment. While Somalia remains one of the most dangerous regions of the world for journalists, dozens of radio stations are broadcasting in South-Central Somalia and there is a competitive newspaper industry in Somaliland. In addition, the telecoms industry is booming with some of the best connections and lowest rates on the continent for the internet and mobile phones. Various authorities govern media and resolve conflicts across the Somali territories. To understand media ‘law’ in this region we must look beyond the formal state structures.

A Picture Tells a Thousand Words is a short opinion piece that highlights the state of journalism in the politically poor climate of Zimbabwe. The abuse of journalists at the hands of the state as well as the failure of said state to protect journalists on duty is at the forefront.

The principle of Access to Knowledge (A2K) has become a common reference point for a diverse set of agendas that all hope to realize technological and human potential by making knowledge more accessible. This book is a history of international copyright focused on principles of A2K and their proponents. Whilst debate and discussion so far has covered the perspectives of major western countries, the author's fresh approach to the topic considers emerging countries and NGOs, who have fought for the principles of A2K that are now fundamental to the system. Written in a clear and accessible style, the book connects copyright history to current problems, issues and events.

The paper offers a review of the growing openness of Russian courts. Driven by statuary law and resolutions of the top courts, judges slowly affirm the right of the public and the media to observe and report on the judicial process. A number of guidelines by the Supreme Court consider practical modalities of the journalistic work so as to facilitate their access to the courtrooms. They take into account the spread of new communication technologies such as online reporting or texting. The paper specifically addresses case law on issues of balance between access to information and the right to privacy, possible limitations to freedom of information and media freedom, prejudgement by the media, etc so on. Assessed are communication aspects of some notorious cases, such as the recent trials of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Pussy Riot artists and Bolotnaya protesters.

This report presents the phenomena of media freedom and pluralism and the major academic and policy debates about their social, political, economic role and implications. It highlights the importance of media freedom and pluralism for the functioning, sustainability and legitimacy of a democratic regime, and therefore the necessity for relevant policy actions. The text also provides a state of the art perspective on the measuring and evaluating of media pluralism. It analyses major aspects of media economics and ownership, including the tendency to media concentration, the potential relationship between pluralism and the increased number of sources of supply, the impact of emerging "Internet native" media players, and globalisation. The legal core of the report examines the development of the debate on legal instruments and jurisprudence, as well as those EU legal instruments that are currently available to tackle the areas of media pluralism and media freedom. Following o...

In modern legislatures, the public nature of political debates has been achieved as a constitutional principle. Constitutions and parliamentary standing orders provide with possibilities for journalists and media to access to sittings of the legislatures in order to offer the public the information on issues debated in parliament. Against this normative background, this paper introduces three cases (from Macedonia, Poland and Hungary) where journalists' work have been limited in legislatures for several reasons. The paper considers also the competing values of freedom of information, freedom of expression visa -vis the dignity and undisturbed functioning of parliaments.

By outlining the long-lasting peculiarities of the Greek media landscape, this paper aims to make us reflect on how the political system affects their development and role. Particularly, through analyzing the policy and regulating frames applied to Greek communication field, we try to shed light on the degree and shapes of media concentration and control as well as on the effects of this widespread phenomenon. Special emphasis is placed on the illicit interweaving of political and media interests, giving rise to a media system which has great difficulties in following constructively the technological developments in the field and challenges the active participation of citizens in the public affairs. In the contemporary society of digital revolution market values continue to be dominant. Those who control the private media outweigh the political figures and as a result any attempts to regulate the communication field are always implemented for the benefit of the private capital. Under these circumstances the question of whether the media can act as amplifiers of the democratic practices is more crucial than ever. This is the central question posed by the paper, arguing that the evolution of the Greek media system is inundated with evidence supporting the view that the particular voice of citizen as well as his right to information is under threat.

Until recently, media policy was thought of as national, media-specific, and as part of the cultural domain. All is changing in a digital public sphere: first, by the processes of globalization in a broad sense; second, by a blurring of borders between media, which can be summed up as convergence; and third, by a more far-reaching commercialisation of the media. The transformation triggered by these developments are ongoing and have been so for quite a few years. Thus, it is time to take stock. The different contributions in this book set out to do that.

With basis in the idea that media policy is fundamentally about regulating the public sphere in accordance with central democratic ideals, the book covers a wide range of issues: Transnational online television distribution; the trouble with building and opening digital audiovisual archives; the impact of recent EU regulations on global conglomerates as well as national public service broadcasters; the debate on net neutrality; the idea of the participating public in policy-making; the regulation of freedom of speech on the internet; as well as the impact of legal globalization on media policy itself.



Contents:

Preface
Jostein Gripsrud, Hallvard Moe
Introduction. The Digital Public Sphere. Challenges for Media Policy

Part I. A Perspective

Slavko Splichal
Eclipse of ”the Public”. From the Public to (transnational) Public Sphere. Conceptual Shifts in the Twentieth Century

Part II. Changes

Hannu Nieminen
Global Copyright Regulation and the Prospects of European Public Sphere. The Case of TVkaista

Karl Knapskog
Providing Cultural Resources. On Turning Audiovisual Archives into a Public Domain

Ole J. Mjøs
News Corporation's MySpace.com and the Digital Challenges to Audiovisual Regulations

Tanja Storsul
Television in Cyberspace. The Net Neutrality Tussle in Norway

Part III. Fundamentals

Hallvard Moe
Notions of the Public in Public Service Broadcasting Policy for the Digital Era

Karen Donders, Caroline Pauwels
What if Competition Policy Assists the Transfer from Public Service Broadcasting to Public Service Media? An analysis of EU State aid Control and its Relevance for Public Broadcasting

Helge Rønning
Tools for Democracy or for Surveillance? Reflections on the Rule of Law on the Internet

Sandra Braman
Legal Globalization and the Public Sphere

The combination of globalization, liberalization and convergence of communication markets has triggered major changes in the governance arrangement of the communications sector, including the growing role of alternative modes of regulation (e.g., self- and co-regulation). These alternatives to traditional statutory regulation are marked by a stronger involvement of non-governmental actors in regulatory processes. Both industry and policymakers consider alternative modes of regulation to have great potential for solving contemporary problems of communications regulation. The increase in alternative regulatory institutions, their potential advantages and disadvantages as compared to state regulation, and challenges of governance choice between available modes of regulation have led to an increasing political and scientific interest in self- and co-regulation. This chapter brings together central findings from research on alternative modes of regulation in the convergent communications sector, focusing on results regarding evidence, legitimacy and governance choice.

Good governance is a real drive behind a country’s development. It protects the human rights, ensures the justice, maintains law an order and provides equal opportunities to the masses. It provides the fruits of progress and development to all and sundry. Participation, transparency and rule of law, are some essentials of good governance. It is a vital aspect at all levels of society and state. It makes the system of the state effective and efficient. Good governance is checked by some organs of the state. Media is one of them. In this paper we discussed about the definitions of media, mass media, governance, good governance and various aspects of it. The role of media is very crucial for good governance. Here the role of media on good governance is elaborately discussed. In preparing this paper I have took help of many books and internet.

I want to convey my heartiest thanks to our honorable course teacher Sarder Kaiser Ahmed Sir for his valuable suggestion and advice. His nice explanation to the topics made us very much clear which helped us a lot.

The recent spate of cases in which reporters have been subpoenaed, fined, jailed, or otherwise disciplined has laid bare the divisions among the courts over the existence and scope of the "reporter's privilege." The cases have also exposed the doctrinal, historical, and theoretical infirmities of the broader law of newsgathering, which encompasses not only source relationships, but also rights of access to places and records, protections against civil and criminal liability for torts and crimes committed in the pursuit of news, and protections against government searches of newsrooms and phone records, among other things. Resolving these conflicts has grown more urgent with the democratization of media and the emergence of bloggers and other news providers who have challenged traditional conceptions of "journalists" and "the press."

Media legislation in Ukraine guarantees media freedom and autonomy and promotes pluralism.  The presence of a broadcasting law and regulatory broadcasting agencies are notable.  They mark a positive exception to the laws and regulatory systems in other CIS republics.  Certain ground rules, regarding the founding of a mass media entity, state registration, state support and economic relief, are applied in actual practice.  Meanwhile, mass communications legislation has laid one of the foundations for the development of the media in Ukraine.  If its provisions are observed and enforced, Ukraine will possess one of the most politically independent media systems in the former USSR.
In this transitional period, both the state and legal institutions are, on the whole, too weak and incompetent to be truly effective.  A well-functioning market economy, non-existent in Ukraine, is prerequisite for the development of political democracy and to the economic freedom of non-state broadcasters and journalists.  It is hoped that in the future, such a properly functioning market economy will provide the basis for a fully functional political democracy and that effective legal institutions and law-enforcement mechanisms will be established.  Only then will media legislation be capable of defending freedom of speech in word as well as in practice.

[First published in Alternative Law Journal 40(2) 2015]

The Internet has an almost unlimited capacity to remember, which has been described as the problem of ‘digital eternity’. Digital eternity presents a challenge for the protection of the right to privacy. This article questions Europe’s controversial response to that challenge in the so-called ‘right to be forgotten’. Since May 2014, search engine providers like Google have been required to remove thousands of links to personal data upon request. The article identifies the practical and ethical difficulties that come with observance of the right to be forgotten.

A working report published as part of an initiative supported by Guardian News and Media, based on research conducted at the Information Law and Policy Centre, Institute of Advanced Legal Studies. Launched at an event in Parliament on 22nd February 2017.

Press publications, both printed and electronic, generally bear the international
standard serial number (ISSN). The need for such a universal
identification code for this type of publications follows from the necessity
to ensure certainty about their turnover and exchange between publishers,
distributors, libraries and archives. The subject of this paper is the analysis
of the role and significance of the ISSN code as well as the international
and domestic principles of assigning it.

In the post-Soviet states of today globalization is taking place predominantly to the West’s values for human rights and fundamental freedoms. This process is being driven by such interna- tional organizations as the European Union, Council of Europe and OSCE, which operate here prima- rily as human-rights protectors. Th organizations have exerted significant pressure on the authori- ties in the countries in this study, especially Azerbaijan, Armenia, Estonia, Georgia, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova and Ukraine. The media reforms that international bodies are influencing in these countries are generally leading towards a more robust model for independent journalism. The concept of free- dom of mass information is reviving, state broadcasters are being turned into public-service, and other changes are taking place.

Misuse of private information (MPI) governs media privacy disputes in English law. The second stage of this doctrine involves a balancing exercise conducted between a claimant's Article 8 privacy right and a defendant's Article 10 right to free expression. Though the starting point is that both rights are of equal value, the balancing process entails an inevitable privileging of one right over the other (albeit tailored to the specific facts of each case). This article focuses on this privileging process and explores the principles that determine which right will prevail in any given case. It applies the analytical technique of deconstruction propounded by Derrida as employed by American critical lawyers. This technique involves identifying binary oppositions, ascertaining the dominant concept and reversing the given hierarchies to reveal their mutual dependence and any potential underlying subjectivities. Deconstructing MPI case law reveals that the balancing of Arts 8 & 10 is underpinned by a fundamental dichotomy, that of the 'public interest versus interesting the public'. This underlying dichotomy is subjected to deconstructive analysis, revealing valuable insights into how these terms are deployed for rhetorical purposes by the various parties in MPI disputes, and the tensions between liberal ideals and commercial realities that permeate case law.

Mindanao is the Philippine's second largest island in the south. Identifying Mindanao-based documentaries that have development themes remain unknown or unacknowledged. Using Phenomenology as theoretical framework and method, as a result, the researcher found out that similar to other documentary films in other parts of the country and the world, the themes showed by Mindanao-based documentaries reflect  in agriculture, health, women and children, environment and population.
However unlike its other foreign and local counterparts, a number of Mindanao-based documentaries anchor the mentioned development themes under the context of peace and conflict situation, human rights, indigenous peoples and their ancestral domains.

The number of cases of defamation by social media is growing. This article examines the principles of assessment of damages as they apply to those cases. In particular, the article examines the concept of the 'grapevine effect': a metaphor used to explain the basis for recovery of general damages for defamation. The grapevine effect has been deployed to notable effect in recent cases of publication by social media. The article argues that the role of the 'grapevine effect' reflects the purposes of awards of damages for defamation in light of the unique characteristics of social media.

For published version, see:  Michael Douglas, '"Their evil lies in the grapevine effect": Assessment of damages in defamation by social media' (2015) 20(4) Media and Arts Law Review 367.

The volume is devoted to the relevant problems in the legal sphere, created and generated by recent advances in science and technology. In particular, it investigates a series of cutting-edge contemporary and controversial case-studies where scientific and technological issues intersect with individual legal rights. The book addresses challenging topics at the intersection of communication technologies and biotech innovations such as freedom of expression, right to health, knowledge production, Internet content regulation, accessibility and freedom of scientific research.

President Ferdinand E. Marcos declared martial law in the Philippines on 21 September 1972. Issuing the declaration under Proclamation 1081 which suspended civil rights, gagged the news media and imposed military authority in the country, Marcos defended this draconian move under the Philippines Constitution in response to a series of bombings allegedly caused by communist rebels. The emergency rule at the height of the Cold War was also planned to quell rebellion and drive national development. Four decades later, on 12 September 2012, President Benigno Aquino III signed Republic Act No. (RA) 10175, or the Cybercrime Prevention Act, into law. This legislation was immediately widely condemned as a
threat to freedom of expression on the internet, the media and online privacy and has been likened by human rights groups, media freedom advocates, ‘netizens’ and opposition Congress members as comparable to the Marcos Martial Law era.
Kabataan Representative Raymond Palatino branded the legislation ‘e-Martial Law’, comparing it to repressive Marcos-era decrees censoring and harassing the media. Fifteen Supreme Court appeal petitions were lodged against the Cybercrime Law but the subsequent ruling found the law constitutional in February 2014. This article examines the law, challenges since the constitutional ruling, and demands for repealing the law and replacing it with a so-called ‘Magna Carta’ of internet media freedom.