Tag Archives | Scholarship

Call for Papers: The Evolving Role of the Internet in Politics and Political Campaigns

By on July 13, 2012 in Internet

As the incoming treasurer for the Association of American Law Schools’ Section on Mass Communications, I’m excited to announce that we’ll be hosting a joint program with the Internet and Computer Law section at our annual meeting in New Orleans.  Here is the announcement with a call for papers:

The AALS Section on Internet and Computer Law and the Section on Mass Communications are hosting a joint program entitled “The Evolving Role of the Internet in Politics and Political Campaigns” at the AALS Annual Meeting to be held in New Orleans, LA from January 4-7, 2013.  Both sections invite submissions of papers on the program’s topic; one paper will be selected for presentation at the conference.

As the Supreme Court recognized in ACLU v. Reno, “the Internet is ‘a unique and wholly new medium of worldwide human communication.'” Among its unique features is that the Internet democratizes the opportunity to engage in political speech by offering ready access to any speaker with an Internet connection to large potential audiences at the local, state, national or global levels.  This program assesses the impact the Internet has had to date on the relationship between the media and public officials or political candidates.  Traditional newspapers are struggling to find a sustainable business model and appear to be losing some influence over the policy agenda or public officials’ conduct.  Internet-only publications and other forms of political speech on the Internet have a complicated relationship with traditional media organizations, which, of course, also rely on the Internet to interact with their audiences.  To what extent are these changes fostering or inhibiting democracy?  Is law reform necessary in response to these changes?

Abstracts for papers on any topic within this broad scope are welcome and should be submitted to Michael Carroll, mcarroll@wcl.american.edu, and Anuj Desai, acdesai@wisc.edu, by August 15, 2012.

I should also add that UNC’s very own Daniel Kreiss will be on the panel, talking about his new book from Oxford University Press: “Taking Our Country Back: The Crafting of Networked Politics from Howard Dean to Barack Obama.”

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Call for Papers: Geek Law Workshop

By on July 4, 2012 in Internet

On September 17-18, 2012, our friends at the University of East Anglia are hosting the 7th annual Geek Law workshop in London. From the announcement:

It’s harder than it used to be to write a Call for Papers for GikII, the so-cool-it-hurts blue skies workshop for papers exploring the interstices between law, technology and popular culture. Back in the day,  you could dazzle the noobs just by mentioning past glories like the first paper on Facebook and privacy, Harry Potter and the Surveillance of Doom, regulation of autonomous agents according to the Roman law of slavery, edible technologies and copyright in Dalek knitting patterns. But nowadays we live in a world where we routinely encounter unmanned surveillance drones used to deliver tacos, incommercial asteroid mining with Richard Branson, 3d printers used to create human organs and the fact that Jeremy Hunt still has a job. Still, if any of these or the other many phenomena of the digital age in desperate need of legal attention are digging a tunnel out of your brain, then send us an abstract for the 7th Gikii workshop!  Maybe this year it will be your paper which contributes the seminal GikII meme following in the honoured footsteps of LOLcats, flying penises, and knitted Daleks. . . .

Abstracts of no longer than 500 words should be sent to lilian.edwards@strath.ac.uk and “Karen Mc Cullagh (LAW)” K.Mccullagh@uea.ac.uk  by August 13th 2012. A limited number of places will be available for participants not giving papers, and preference will be given for these to scholars (including postgraduate students) who have not previously attended GikII. Registration for these places will open at gikii.com when acceptance of abstracts is notified.

More info here.

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Media law dissertation best in nation

By on May 25, 2012 in First Amendment

A recent Ph.D. graduate of the UNC School of Journalism and Mass Communication has won the 2012 Nafziger-White-Salwen Dissertation Award for the best dissertation in the field of mass communication.

The winner is Dr. Dean Smith, an affiliated scholar of the UNC Center for Media Law and Policy. The dissertation award is given by the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) and will be presented during the association’s national convention in August.

The title of Smith’s dissertation is “Legislating the First Amendment: Statutory Shield Laws as Non-Judicial Precedents.” The work will be published as a book next year by LBF Scholarly Publishing.

Smith’s dissertation adviser was Dr. Cathy Packer, co-director of the UNC Center for Media Law and Policy.

In the fall, Smith will join the faculty at N.C. State University as a teaching visiting professor of journalism in the English Department. He also will teach as an adjunct professor at High Point University.

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Students sweep media law research prizes

By on May 24, 2012 in Journalism

UNC School of Journalism and Mass Communication graduate students have won the first, second and third-place top-student-paper awards for media law research they will present at the annual convention of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication in August.

Also winning prizes in the AEJMC Law and Policy Division are two recent graduates of the J-School’s Ph.D. program.

First-place student paper and winner of the Whitney and Shirley Mundt Top Student Paper Award: Master’s student Jeanne-Marie DeStefano for her paper “An Analysis of FTC Cases Involving Substantiation of Health Claims in Food Advertising”

Second-place student paper: Doctoral student Lisa Barnard for her paper titled “Tracking, Technology and Tweens: Better Regulation to Protect Children’s Privacy Online”

Third-place student paper: Master’s student John Remensperger for his paper titled “Who are the Media? The Media Exemption to Campaign Finance Laws”

Recent graduate Dr. Dean Smith won second-place faculty paper for his paper titled “The Real Story Behind the Nation’s First Shield Law: Maryland 1894-1897.” Smith will join the faculty at N.C. State University in the fall.

Recent graduate Dr. Woody Hartzog had a paper accepted titled “The Life, Death, and Revival of Implied Confidentiality.” Hartzog is on the faculty at the Cumberland School of Law at Samford University in Alabama.

For acceptance, all papers were double blind-reviewed by judges with no distinction made between student and faculty papers. This means students competed with all submitted papers for acceptance including faculty-authored papers. Once accepted, student-authored papers were identified and selected for top-student-paper awards.

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J-School Faculty and Students to Present Legal Research

By on February 27, 2012 in Journalism

UNC School of Journalism and Mass Communication students, faculty and alumni have had papers accepted for presentation in the Law and Policy Division at the AEJMC Southeast Colloquium being hosted by Virginia Tech University March 8-10. The papers were selected through a process of blind review.

Of the 20 papers accepted for presentation in the Law and Policy Division at the Colloquium, 11 have UNC-affiliated authors including the second-place student paper and the first and second place faculty papers. They are:

Student-authored papers:

“Student Online Speech Rights: The Dissolution of the ‘Schoolhouse Gate’ and How Courts Have Ruled in Online Student Speech Cases” by Cindy J. Austin (master’s student)

“An Analysis of FTC Cases Involving Substantiation of Health Claims in Food Advertising: Is the Standard Tightening to the Level of FDA Labeling Standards?” by Jeanne-Marie DeStephano (master’s student)

“A Moving Target: The Attorney-Client Privilege” by Tom Eppes (doctoral student)

“Prescription Drug Marketing to Physicians and the First Amendment” by Laura Marshall (master’s student)

“Food Industry Response to Proposed Guidelines for Self-Regulation of Food Marketing Aimed at Children” by Patrick Mustain (master’s student)

“Putting Media Contact Policies to the Facial Test: When Media Contact Policies are Constitutionally Permissible” by April Raphiou (doctoral student)

“Who are the Media? The Media Exemption to Campaign Finance Regulation” by John Remensperger (master’s student) (*second place student paper)

“Internet Advertising and Interactive Computer Services: Liability and Immunity as Provided by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act” by Christopher J. Vargo (doctoral student)

Faculty-authored papers:

“A Dangerous Distinction: The Deconstitutionalization of Private Speech” by Derigan Silver (alum) and Ruth Walden (faculty) (*second place faculty paper)

“The Real Story Behind the Nation’s First Shield Law: Maryland 1894-1897” by Dean Smith (faculty)

Alum-authored papers:

“The Case for Online Obscurity” by Woodrow Hartzog (alum) (*first place faculty paper)

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