Search

Of the seventy-three cases in the fourth edition of Paul Siegel's Cases in Communication Law, twenty-eight are new to this edition. Among these are such Supreme Court decisions as Air Wisconsin Airlines Corporation v. Hoeper, which gives those who follow the post-911 instruction, “if you see something, say something!” some special protection from libel suits; Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association, which explicitly gives maximal First Amendment protection to violent video games, even when sold to minors; U.S. v. Alvarez, which prohibits prosecution for falsely claiming one has been awarded a Medal of Honor; and Snyder v. Phelps, which gave notorious minister Fred Phelps the right to mount demonstrations with rather nasty messages at funerals.Siegel has used several criteria to select cases for inclusion in this and previous editions. He admits unabashedly that one of those criteria is the cultural significance, familiarity, and even celebrity of the controversies or the litigants. Just to cite a few examples, this edition includes cases involving such litigants as Michael Moore, Penn & Teller, Joan Rivers, and Madonna, as well as TV programs like Family Guy, CSI, Law and Order, and featured movies include Disturbia, American Gangster, American Beauty, and The Hangover, Part II.

Communication Law in America is a comprehensive, easy-to-follow overview of the complicated ways in which U.S. law determines who may say what to (and about) whom. It covers the usual content– libel, invasion of privacy, copyright and trademark, access to government information, advertising, electronic media– all the while giving readers a sense of how and why this country has come to weigh freedom of speech above competing freedoms far more often than in other Western democracies.This fourth edition of the well-received text boasts over 300 new citations, including discussion of a dozen U. S. Supreme Court decisions handed down since the previous edition.The nearly 200 still photos and over 80 videos on the author-maintained website – generally not images of litigants but of the actual artifacts (TV and movie scenes, advertisements, news reports) that led to the law suits– have always represented dramatic added value to students and professors alike. The new edition includes 35 new visual elements, including 20 videos.The text also offers a new section on how the First Amendment applies to special populations, including students, government employees in general, and the military in particular.

Updated with fresh examples throughout, the extensively illustrated third edition of Paul Siegel's Communication Law in America is a comprehensive, easy-to-follow overview of the complicated ways in which U.S. law determines who may say what to (and about) whom. Beginning with a clear explanation of the structure and history of the U.S. legal system, Siegel looks at how and why this country has come to place value on the freedom of speech, perhaps above other, sometimes_competing freedoms. He covers the key legal concerns affecting media today, including First Amendment principles, common laws, constitutional considerations, libel laws, invasion of privacy, copyright and trademark, access to government information, covering the judiciary, protecting news sources, advertising, sexual messages and obscenity laws, broadcast regulations, the Internet, and more.