ABSTRACT
This chapter overviews the approaches and standards in the Nordic and Baltic region with regard to human rights law and regulating freedom of expression in new media. The media environment in the region is influenced by the fact that most of the countries are small in terms of inhabitants but have their own language. All the countries in the region have constitutional provisions proclaiming freedom of expression. The chapter reviews the influence of supranational instruments upon the Nordic new media landscape from the perspective of courts’ jurisprudence and normative regulation. The jurisprudence of the European Convention on Human Rights is without doubt the single most important supranational source influencing the conceptualisation and protection of freedom of expression in all Nordic and Baltic countries. The relative vacuum of new media legal regulation originating from transnational or domestic sources is compensated to some extent by media self-regulation.
