Dr Andrew Scott NAB6.25

This course is available on the MSc in Law and Accounting, MSc in Media and Communications, MSc in Media and Communications (Media and Communications Governance), MSc in Media and Communications (Research), MSc in Public Administration and Government (LSE and Peking University), MSc in Public Policy and Administration, MSc in Regulation, MSc in Regulation (Research), Master of Laws and Master of Laws (extended part-time study). This course is available with permission as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit.

This course provides a comparative and generic introduction to key issues in the regulation of media and communications, focusing on economic and structural, commercial, and content regulation of print media, broadcasting, telecommunications and internet, and including problems relating to convergence of media and communications. The course considers the range of regulatory options open to meet regulatory objectives. Topics include regulating to protect reputation and privacy; advertising regulation; rights creation and management; cultural protection vs free trade in media services; regulating for impartiality and diversity (public service broadcasting); licensing, spectrum allocation and media ownership regulation; public value and state aid controls; competition law and industry specific structural regulation.

20 hours of seminars in the LT. 4 hours of seminars in the ST.

All students will submit one 1,500 word essay. Students will also be required to submit an essay plan and annotated bibliography for the assessed essay.

Gibbons, Regulating the Media (2nd edn, Sweet & Maxwell, 1998); Feintuck and Varney, Media Regulation, Public Interest and the Law (2nd edn, 2006); Goldberg, Prosser & Verhulst (Eds), Regulating the Changing Media: a Comparative Study (OUP, 1998); Fenwick and Phillipson, Media Freedom Under the Human Rights Act (OUP, 2006); Woods and Harrison, European Broadcasting Law and Policy (CUP, 2007).

Essay (100%, 8000 words) in the ST.