Fairness Doctrine

Freedom of speech is a foundational principle of the American Constitutional system. This collection of over 100 primary documents from a variety of sources will help students understand exactly what is meant by "free speech," and how it has evolved since the founding of our country. Court cases, opinion pieces, and many other documents bring to life the tension between America's constitutional commitment to robust and unrestrained discourse and recurring efforts to suppress expression deemed dangerous, degrading or obscene. Explanatory introductions to each document aid users in understanding the various arguments put forth in debates over exactly how to define the Constitution to encourage readers to consider all sides when drawing their own conclusions.

This book provides the most comprehensive and contemporary coverage available of communications law, a subject characterized by rapidly expanding and changing horizons. Broader in focus than any other book on the topic, Modern Communications Law considers the media's nature and context, structural governance of the communications industry, and content issues. The author provides an exhaustive study of telephone communications, as well as print, broadcasting, and new media including cable. The book is designed particularly for pertinent law school courses and will also be a key source for legal practitioners, media industry professionals, and government regulators and policymakers.

Broadcasting Law is the first comparative study of radio and television, discussing law in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, and the United States. It also contains a chapter on European Community legislation in this area. Timely in view of the continuing debate about the renewal of the BBC Charter, the future of the independent sector following the establishment of new franchises, and the growing activity among broadcasters eager to take advantage of the technological innovations now affecting broadcasting. The work explores a common European approach to broadcasting regulation which contrasts sharply with the free market position in the United States.

"The free press cannot be free," Robert Entman asserts. "Inevitably, it is dependent." In this penetrating critique of American journalism and the political process, Entman identifies a "vicious circle of interdependence" as the key dilemma facing reporters and editors. To become sophisticated citizens, he argues, Americans need high-quality, independent political journalism; yet, to stay in business while producing such journalism, news organizations would need an audience of sophisticated citizens. As Entman shows, there is no easy way out of this dilemma, which has encouraged the decay of democratic citizenship as well as the media's continuing failure to live up to their own highest ideals. Addressing widespread despair over the degeneration of presidential campaigns, Entman argues that the media system virtually compels politicians to practice demagoguery. Entman confronts a provocative array of issues: how the media's reliance on elite groups and individuals for information inevitably slants the news, despite adherence to objectivity standards; why the media hold government accountable for its worst errors--such as scandals and foreign misadventures--only after it's too late to prevent them; how the interdependence of the media and their audience molds public opinion in ways neither group alone can control; why greater media competition does not necessarily mean better journalism; why the abolition of the FCC's Fairness Doctrine could make things worse. Entman sheds fascinating light on important news events of the past decade. He compares, for example, coverage of the failed hostage rescue in 1980, which subjected President Carter to a barrage of criticism, with coverage of the 1983 bombing that killed 241 Marines in Lebanon, an incident in which President Reagan largely escaped blame. He shows how various factors unrelated to the reality of the events themselves--the apparent popularity of Reagan and unpopularity of Carter, differences in the way the Presidents publicly framed the incidents, the potent symbols skillfully manipulated by Reagan's but not by Carter's news managers--produced two very different kinds of reportage. Entman concludes with some thoughtful suggestions for improvement. Chiefly, he proposes the creation of subsidized, party-based news outlets as a way of promoting new modes of news gathering and analysis, of spurring the established media to more innovative coverage, and of increasing political awareness and participation. Such suggestions, along with the author's probing media criticisms, make this book essential reading for anyone concerned about the state of democracy in America.

With the advent of new technologies and governmental regulation, notably the Telecommunications Act of 1996, not only has the broadcast industry changed dramatically, but also the laws covering the management of its human resources. Executives must know and understand these changes to operate within the law and to make best use of their people. By no means a dry treatise but still with careful attention to scholarly accuracy, and the latest thinking, Scott's book approaches the crucial human resource problems in broadcasting with a hands-on awareness of what really goes on among broadcasting industry people and the organizations that depend on them. Scott writes for practitioners and provides the information they can use daily, supplying academic professionals and students of broadcasting management with an important resource.