Alternatively, you may on occasion want a legal issue to turn into a dispute so that you can go to court to make a point or establish a principle. The course is part survey and part application. We will introduce you to legal principles and then ask you to apply these principles to a set of facts - either by studying a case or by thinking about a hypothetical situation. This course assumes no prior knowledge of the law. However, students who are media or communications professionals may well have sought legal advice in the past during the preparation or production of a story.
Media law affects the way information can be obtained and presented in many different ways.
The purpose of this course is not to provide you with the answers you need to decide what the law is with regard to any issue you might deal with in your work. Law permeates all aspects of our lives. Understanding basic legal principles and how those principles have been applied to various factual situations will help you to identify the legal issues that may arise in your career. This course is not designed to train you as a lawyer. However, we hope that, by learning about some specific legal topics, you will be able to identify when a legal issue arises, and to govern yourself appropriately.