Media Law and Ethics

Work in progress Instructor: Joerg Blumtritt

Working in media we make ethical decisions every day. Often, we find ourselves confronted with conflicting interests, we might get caught between personal and professional standards, and even face the legal consequences of our work. In this course students will be introduced into the basics of media ethics and get a first understanding of the legal structure supporting publishing and creative work. Ethics question we will discuss include freedom of expression, privacy, anonymity, conflict of interest, public relations vs. journalism, fairness, adequacy and appropriateness. Legal aspects we will look into include libel, damages, torts and crimes that might be committed during the course of newsgathering, prior restraint, copyright, authorship, and intellectual property. We will specifically examine now digital technology change the conditions, in particular by the use of algorithms and AI.

The course takes the perspective of media and publishing practice and include discussion and legal positions from outside the US.

Readings

This class has extensive readings which will inform weekly discussions. The readings will usually be provided as links or as pdfs which then can be found in this Google drive:

Bibliography of all literature used

Administrative Matters

Please see the page Administrative Matters

Schedule

Work in progress - subject to change

Part I Law

1. Introduction - What do we mean when we say ethics? What is "Law"?

2. Private law, public law

3. Constitutional rights: Freedom of speech, freedom of expression, freedom of the press

4. Libel, damages, torts

5. Crimes committed during the course of newsgathering

6. Prior restraint and censorship

7. Copyright, authorship, and intellectual property

Part II Media, society, ethics

8. Policy and regulation

9 Privacy, anonymity, informational self determination

10. Conflict of interest

11. Bias

Part II Digital media ethics

12. Algorithm ethics

13. Global vs. local

13. AI ethics and the law (so far)

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^{Media Law and Ethics by Joerg Blumtritt @jbenno@mastodon.social - Other classes I teach: github.com/jbenno}