ABSTRACT
This chapter examines media law and related ethical issues from a global perspective. It covers the acceleration and globalization of media law due to the Internet and explains how nearly every area of American media law and ethics has become closely intertwined with international and foreign law. It addresses legal challenges to news media, especially the transnational nature of the media which forces journalists and media lawyers to engage in varying degrees of risk assessment. Among the topics examined are libel, privacy, freedom of the press and access to information, journalistic privilege, corporate and commercial speech, and hate speech in the global twenty-first century. Also analyzed are areas of media liability that have attracted growing attention internationally. As much as anything, this chapter is informed by two overarching questions: (1) How does the nation-state remain relevant to setting the free press boundaries? and (2) How is media law increasingly affected by the Internet?
