Tag Archives | Students

The James R. Cleary Prize for Student Media Law and Policy Research 2018 Competition

By on March 12, 2019 in Center for Media Law and Policy

I am thrilled to announce that the UNC Center for Media Law and Policy will award an annual prize to students who write the best published scholarly articles on media law and policy related topics. The award honors the legacy of James R. Cleary, an attorney who practiced for 56 years in Huntsville, Ala.  He was particularly interested in the communications field and media law issues.  Cleary’s daughter, Johanna Cleary, is a 2004 Ph.D. graduate of the UNC School of Media and Journalism.

The prize competition is open to all college and university students. Up to three winners will be selected, with a first prize of $1,000, a second prize of $500, and a third prize of $250. The prizes will be awarded to the authors of published papers that most creatively and convincingly propose solutions to significant problems in the field of media law and policy, including First Amendment speech and press issues. All methodologies are welcome.

The deadline for submission is April 15, 2019.

Rules

  1. The author of the submitted publication must have been enrolled in a graduate or undergraduate degree-granting program in the United States at the time the article was accepted for publication. This includes, but is not limited to, students enrolled in M.A. and Ph.D. programs, law school (including J.D., L.L.M., and J.S.D. candidates), and other professional schools (including M.B.A. candidates).
  2. The submitted paper must have been published in a law review or peer-reviewed journal during the prior calendar year.
  3. Each student may submit only one entry.
  4. Jointly authored papers are eligible, provided all authors meet the eligibility requirements for the competition. If a winning paper has more than one author, the prize will be split equally among the co-authors. No work with a faculty co-author will be considered.
  5. Each entry must be the original work of the listed author(s). The author(s) must perform all of the key tasks of identifying the topic, researching it, analyzing it, formulating positions and arguments, and writing and revising the paper.
  6. Papers will be evaluated based on a number of factors, including thoroughness of research and analysis, relevance to the competition topic, relevance to current legal and/ or public policy debates, originality of thought, and clarity of expression.
  7. The prize will be monetary. Winners will be required to submit a completed W-9, affidavit of eligibility, tax acknowledgment and liability release for tax purposes as a condition of receiving the cash prize.
  8. In the unlikely event that entries are of insufficient quality to merit an award, the Center for Media Law and Policy reserves the right not to award some or all of the prizes.

Submission Process

  • All entries must be received by 11:59 p.m. EST on April 15, 2019.
  • Entries must be sent via email to medialaw[at]unc.edu with the following in the subject line: “James R. Cleary Prize Submission: [Name of Author]”
  • Papers should be submitted in Portable Document Format (.pdf).
  • Entries MUST include a signed cover sheet that may be downloaded from the Center for Media Law Policy’s website here.

A review committee comprised of faculty and affiliates from the UNC Center for Media Law and Policy will review the submissions and determine the winning paper(s). The decisions of the committee are final. Winners will be notified and final results will appear on the Center’s website in late spring. Due to the large number of expected entries, the Center cannot contact all non-winning entrants.

For more information, please visit our Cleary Competition page. Submit your research to win this award!

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Media Law Dual Degree Programs at UNC-Chapel Hill

By on October 22, 2018 in Center for Media Law and Policy

Hey students, have you thought about what you want to do after you graduate with your undergraduate or master’s degree? Thinking about law school and a career in media law and policy? A strong background in law and mass communication can be a launching pad for a career in law, media, business, entertainment, government, public policy or academia. For a sampling of the jobs available in these growing fields, check out our Media Law Jobs Board.

The nationally renowned UNC School of Media and Journalism and UNC School of Law have brought together these two dynamic fields to offer two exciting dual degree programs in media law and policy that allow students to earn simultaneous M.A./J.D. or Ph.D./J.D. degrees in less time than it would take to earn the individual degrees separately (an earned master’s degree is required to apply for the dual Ph.D./J.D. degree program). Students who apply to the dual degree program can use their LSAT score in lieu of the GRE for admission to the M.A. or Ph.D. program. Dual degree students often work with the Center for Media Law and Policy and receive extensive mentoring from the Center’s affiliated faculty.

We will be holding two information sessions for the Dual Degree Program over the next two weeks.  The first, which is geared primarily for current law students, will take place on October 22 at 5:00 PM in Room 5048 at the UNC School of Law.  The second session will be on October 29 at 5:00 PM in the Freedom Forum Conference Center in Carroll Hall at the UNC School of Media and Journalism. For more information on the October 29 session, please see our separate event listing.

Anyone interested in joining the active and vibrant media law community here at UNC is invited to attend either session. Members of the program’s faculty and current dual degree students will be there to answer questions. Pizza will be served!

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Privacy by Design: A Student Guide for Collecting and Protecting User Data

By on August 24, 2018 in Privacy

As we start the new semester at UNC – Chapel Hill, I want to reflect briefly on a class I taught last spring and highlight the great work of some of the students in that class.

For the past six years, I’ve taught a class called Media & Internet Law Practicum.  This is a class I designed shortly after joining the faculty at the UNC School of Law.  My goal was to give students the chance to see what it is like to work in the legal department at a diversified media company. I play the role of  “general counsel” and the students, who are assigned to 3-4 person teams, serve as “associate counsel.” In addition to their classroom work, the teams are embedded in one of several ongoing news-producing projects at the UNC School of Media and Journalism, including Carolina Week (television program), Carolina Connection (radio program), Media Hub (multimedia), and Reese News Lab (startup incubator), where the law students work with undergraduate and graduate student journalists.  Through a combination of in-class simulations and real-world problems arising from their projects, the students gain substantial insight into how in-house lawyers provide legal counseling to media and Internet clients.

At the end of the semester I ask each student team to create a tangible resource/guide that addresses an ongoing legal need for their project.  Over the years, the students have created some fantastic things, including copyright and fair use guides, a primer on FERPA, a pocket summary of a reporter’s legal rights when engaged in newsgathering, fair use training aids, and most recently, a guide titled “Privacy and Security by Design: Best Practices for Collecting and Protecting User Data.” This very useful brochure was created by Amber Lee, David Mansor, and Lauren Russell to help the students in the Reese News Lab avoid legal problems when developing new apps and services. They graciously agreed to allow me to share their work with all of you.

Here is a snippet from the introduction:

No matter what your product is, whether it be an app to inform users on local elections, or a payment service for 20-something drinkers trying to avoid long lines at the bar, you will likely be collecting information from your users. Collecting information about your users allows you to better personalize services and marketing, and sharing the information in an appropriate way could potentially be a revenue stream for your company. Almost all websites—including the Federal Trade Commission’s, the federal agency that polices private companies’ cybersecurity—collect some information on its visitors. But startups should tread carefully. Successful tech companies ranging from Uber to Google to Facebook have gotten into trouble with the FTC and have lost public trust for mishandling user data. It is important to think about users’ privacy throughout your product design and development process.

You can download the entire guide here.  Great work Amber, David, and Lauren!

 

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UNC Media Law Students Receive Awards, Present Research, Accept Jobs, and more

By on March 26, 2018 in Center for Media Law and Policy

Our media law graduate students are the heart of what we do at the Center for Media Law and Policy. Daily, they impress us with their knowledge, curiosity and passion. Among their many accomplishments and successes, we are proud to highlight the following items:

Third-year PhD student and Park Fellow Kyla Garrett Wagner was awarded UNC’s 2018 Student Excellence in Mentoring Award. The award recognizes graduate and professional students who engage in outstanding peer mentorship across campus. Wagner is an interdisciplinary student who studies sexual expression as a free speech and public health issue. She recently served as first author on a study about citizen support for a California law requiring adult film actors to wear condoms. The article titled, “My sexual entertainment, my vote: How attitudes toward condom use in pornography related to support for California’s condom law.” The paper was written with Dr. Joe Cabosky, a faculty member in the School of Journalism and Media, and was published in the journal Sexuality & Culture.

Three Carolina students presented at the 2018 Association for Educators in Journalism in Mass Communication (AEJMC) Southeast Colloquium. Third-year PhD student and Park Fellow Kriste Patrow presented on the issue of government speech after a Supreme court ruling on the topic; Third-year PhD student and Park Fellow Kyla Garrett Wagner presented her research on sexual expression; and MA/JD student and Pruden Fellow Mariam Turner presented on artificial intelligence and copyright law. Wagner’s paper was selected as the top student paper for her division. The conference took place March 8-10 at the University of Alabama.

MA/JD student and Pruden Fellow Mariam Turner was recently offered a legal internship at National Public Radio (“NPR”). Mariam will spend the summer at NPR’s office in Washington, D.C. where she will work on audio licensing and copyright issues for NPR’s general counsel.

 

 

MA/JD student and Park Fellow Lindsie Trego, our resident expert on student expression, has accepted a legal fellowship with the Reporter’s Committee for Freedom of the Press, and will begin work with them early next fall. In the meantime, Lindsie will present her thesis research on college media censorship at the AAUP’s Annual Conference on the State of Higher Education in Arlington, VA, June 14-15. This year’s conference has a special focus on free speech on campus. Lindsie is looking forward to presenting to an audience that deals with the practical aspects of student expression in higher education every day. Lindsie was also a recently featured speaker on the Student Press Law Center’s Facebook live webcast celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier Supreme Court decision on student speech.

Third-year Ph.D. student Shao Chengyuan has been invited to present at the International Association for Media and Communication Research conference in Eugene, Ore. in June. She will present two proposals: “Thirty-Seven Years of Comparative Legal Studies on Speech Laws between the United States and China: A Content Analysis,” and “Cybersecurity Law of China and the Chinese Cybersecurity Framework”

Congratulations to our wonderful graduate students!

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UNC Students attend NCPA Dinner with NC Supreme Court Justices

By on March 6, 2018 in Center for Media Law and Policy

UNC students with Senior Associate Justice Paul Martin Newby at the 2018 NCPA dinner.

On Feb. 21, the UNC Center for Media Law co-sponsored the North Carolina Press Association’s (“NCPA”) annual dinner with the North Carolina Supreme Court. The dinner is a staple of the NCPA’s annual convention. One of the goals of the dinner is to offer students a chance to mingle and dine with members of the NCPA Board of Directors and the justices on the North Carolina Supreme Court.

Nearly a dozen Carolina students attended the dinner. Each of the students was placed at a table with a Supreme Court Justice (six of whom attended) and several members of the NCPA. During dinner, the tables were given a list of discussion questions that addressed current issues regarding media access and the courts.

Kyla Wagner, a UNC doctoral student, poses a question to the panel of NC Supreme Court Justices.

The students made wonderful contributions to the conversations thanks to their unique perspective as young lawyers, scholars and journalists who work with the industry and the legal system. The result of each discussion was presented by a student representative from each table.

In addition to the dinner discussions, the students were given the opportunity to ask questions of the justices in an informative panel. The entire event served as a wonderful opportunity for the students to interact with and learn from the justices and NCPA board members.

Many thanks to the NCPA for inviting our students to this event!

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