Media law is dynamic and colorful, and our understanding of it is changing. New communication technologies, for example, are prompting lawyers, judges, and scholars to reconsider traditional legal doctrines and concepts. This course addresses the old and the new, with a focus on the philosophical basis of free expression; the principles that animate the First Amendment; and the discrete issues that most often impact the media, including prior restraints, privacy, defamation, intellectual property, access to public meetings and records, protection of news sources and notes, access to courts, and obscenity and indecency. The fine print: This is an online class that meets by Zoom from 7 to 9:30 p.m. each Tuesday, with other asynchronous material assigned weekly. Final grades will be determined by writing projects, not a traditional exam. If you have questions, please email jonathan.peters@uga.edu.
Instructor: Jonathan Peters is a media law professor at the University of Georgia, with appointments in the School of Law and the College of Journalism and Mass Communication. He is the press freedom correspondent for the Columbia Journalism Review, and he is a frequent commentator on media law issues for The New York Times, The Washington Post, Vanity Fair, CNN, NPR, and PBS. Peters conducts research in both American and international media law, and he is coauthor of the book The Law of Public Communication.