The Internet brings opportunity and peril for media freedom and freedom of expression. It enables new forms of publication and extends the reach of traditional publishers, but its power increases the potential damage of harmful speech and invites state regulation and censorship as well as manipulation by private and commercial interests.
In jurisdictions around the world, courts, lawmakers and regulators grapple with these contradictions and challenges in different ways with different goals in mind. The media law reforms they are adopting or considering contain crucial lessons for those forming their own responses or who seek to understand how technology is driving such rapid change in how information and opinion are distributed or restricted.
In this book, many of the world's leading authorities examine the emerging landscape of reform in nations with variable political and legal contexts. They analyse developments particularly through the prisms of defamation and media regulation, but also explore the impact of technology on privacy law and national security.
Whether as jurists, lawmakers, legal practitioners or scholars, they are at the front lines of a story of epic change in how and why the Internet is changing the nature and raising the stakes of 21st century communication and expression.
Introduction
Doreen Weisenhaus and Simon NM Young
Part A: Conceptual Perspectives of Media Law and Policy
1. Defending Media Freedom in the Internet Age
Peter Noorlander
2. Advances in Open Justice in England and Wales
Lord Dyson MR
3. Free Speech, Reputation and Media Intrusion: Law Reform Now
Lord Lester of Herne Hill KC
4. Independence of the Press as a Constitutional Necessity
Gillian Phillips
Part B: Media Law Reform and Defamation
5. Rethinking Reynolds: Defending Public Interest Speech
Andrew T Kenyon
6. Defamation Law in Canada and England: Emerging Differences
Paul Schabas and Adam Lazier
7. The Internet and Politics in the Development of Hong Kong Defamation Law
Rick Glofcheski
8. China's Defamation Law: The Contest Between Criminal and Civil Defamation Law
Xu Xun
9. The Philippine Supreme Court on Cyber Libel: Lost in Overbreadth
H Harry L Roque, Jr
10. Confidentiality of Journalists' Sources in Singapore: Silence is Not Golden
George Hwang
Part C: Legal Regulation of the Media and Internet
11. Challenges for Communications in a Changing Legal Landscape
Rolf H Weber
12. Self-regulation of the Press in the United Kingdom
Lord Hunt of Wirral
13. Regulatory Responses from a Southern Archipelago
Ursula Cheer
14. Privacy Down Under
Peter Bartlett
15. Two Faces of Freedom of the Press in Indonesia's Reformation Era
T Mulya Lubis
