This seminar will explore new and old legal issues relevant to media today, including defamation, privacy, copyright, freedom of information, access to judicial proceedings, and multiple other topics. Each week, the class will focus on a different chapter of Mass Media Law, Professor Gajda’s co-authored casebook designed to teach media law for the Internet age. Focused topics within those broader chapters include drone newsgathering, the potentially weakening Communications Decency Act, and courts’ answers to today’s key media law-related questions including the definition for journalist, when privacy should trump newsworthiness, citizen liability for filming police, when anonymous internet speakers should be unmasked, and more. Students will then research, write about, and present to the class a discrete topic of their choosing relevant to media today. Interested students are urged to offer well-supported applications and to take seriously the application process for the seminar.
Fall 2016
Amy Gajda
Consumer Law
Seminars