Regulating Social Media

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.

Susan J. Drucker (JD, St. John’s University School of Law) is a professor in the Department of Journalism/Media Studies at the School of Communication, Hofstra University. She is an attorney, and editor of the Communication Law series for Peter Lang. She is the author and coeditor of nine books including The Urban Communication Reader I and II, Voices in the Street: Gender, Media and Public Space, Regulating Convergence (2010) and two editions of Real Law @ Virtual Space: The Regulation of Cyberspace (1999, 2005) with Gary Gumpert. Her work examines the relationship between media technology and human factors, particularly as viewed from a legal perspective. Along with Gary Gumpert, she has received the Franklyn S. Haiman Award for Distinguished Scholarship in Freedom of Expression. Gary Gumpert (PhD, Wayne State University) is Emeritus Professor of Communication at Queens College of the City University of New York and president of the Urban Communication Foundation. Professor Gumpert’s publications include Talking Tombstones and Other Tales of the Media Age and three edited volumes of Inter/Media: Interpersonal Communication in a Media Age. He is series editor of the Urban Communication series for Peter Lang. His primary research focuses on the nexus of communication technology and social relationships, particularly looking at urban and suburban development, the alteration of public space, and the changing nature of community. His work has been recognized with the Neil Postman Award for Career Achievement in Public Intellectual Activity.