The First Amendment protects many types of speech. The many ways we use technologies to interact with each other and society has led U.S. courts to interpret and apply First Amendment principles in a variety of ways. This course has explored some of them to help you develop an appreciation of the:
• distinctions among First Amendment rights, protections, and responsibilities afforded U.S. private citizens, public figures, public officials, and the media.
• factors shaping the evolution of U.S. mass media laws to understand the synergistic relationship between the U.S. mass media and society, politics, economics, ethics, and religion.
• key media law principles for defamation and libel, privacy, copyright, news and entertainment media content, and broadcast, cable, common carrier, and potentially, social media regulation in real-world situations.
