Communications Law

This course begins with a focus on First Amendment aspects of mass communication and studies the values, ethics and regulation of public communications, print and broadcast journalism, media coverage of courts (rights and values of free press and fair trial), information gathering, confidentiality and access to newspapers, economic regulations of the communications industry and the content and structural regulation of mass media including the fairness doctrine, political speech, licensing, franchising and ownership regulations, program content restrictions, and the laws related to nonbroadcast video technologies including cable and satellite as well as the laws related to the major industries regulated by the FCC such as broadcasting and telephone, the FTC and the regulation of advertising, and laws governing obscenity, libel and privacy.