Convergence, participatory culture, multimedia technologies, and social media platforms are creating new communicative opportunities that fundamentally influence citizenship and journalism. Social media present a staggering breadth of legal and ethical matters to consider. The limits and laws of free expression in this new media landscape are beginning to emerge both domestically and internationally, causing us to ask the following questions: How do we conceive of privacy? Should the law protect citizen journalists? How do social media affect ethical obligations of journalists and public relations professionals? These are just a few of the issues raised by the new social media landscape. Myriad standards of professional ethics command compliance in order for various media industries to function. Scholarly researchers of social media have not yet focused on the rights of expression and ethical obligations of the new media environment. This volume will address the scope and nature of this developing environment of expression with chapter topics ranging from privacy, cyber-bullying, and harassment to defamation, intellectual property rights, and online safety.

The studies in this volume support certain common, perhaps universal conclusions about heroes: All cultures have them; all cultures need them; who or what is considered heroic may vary from culture to culture; the heroes of a culture reflect or define culture values; communication is at the heart of hero creation and maintenance. The array of topics associated with heroes is vast in this global, post September 11th, modern media environment. This volume provides a survey and hopefully stimulates consideration of continuity and change with regard to heroes. ""Heroes in a Global World"" is concerned with the role communication processes, practices, and technologies play in developing the form and function of the contemporary hero.

This book explores the notion that the push toward marketization is the central force currently restructuring the communications landscape and examines the consequences of this development for the constitution of public culture. The contributors analyze the core institutional processes of marketization and assess their impact on the structure and operations of media and communication systems around the world over the last two decades. The chapters are organized over four key themes - consolidation, incorporation, globalization and resistance.

The first edition of Real Law @ Virtual Space explored the historical and ever-changing aspects of the regulation of communication in cyberspace. Much has changed in the intervening four years as legislators, service providers, consumers and courts grapple with fundamental principles and nuances of regulation, particularly as daily social, political, economic and commercial life moves increasingly into cyberspace. The second edition of this volume addresses the foundation of regulation while reporting on the most current evolving regulatory measures. The technology of communication challenges developments in applicable laws governing rights of privacy, free expression, and liability. Specifically, developments in such areas as obscenity, libel, copyright and intellectual property, linking liability, and cybercrime are considered. In addition, the volume examines existing law and explores the issues that will require legislative and judicial attention in the near future as the law develops and focuses upon communicative rights and liabilities. The volume focuses on developments within the United States, but it also deals with the challenges to jurisdiction in transnational cyberspace.