Page 102 - Law and the Media

4 New Media

Estelle Overs

4.1 Introduction

New media is extremely important to those working in the media. Almost all traditional
forms of publishing and broadcast are now stored and transmitted in new media formats.
Newspapers and magazines are widely available on the Internet through personal computers,
mobile telephones and handheld products. Television broadcasts are increasingly transmitted
digitally via satellite and cable systems and often include Internet access, ‘interactive
elements’ and pay-per-view films. Photographers using digital cameras are able to digitally
transmit their photographs back to newspapers and magazines from anywhere in the world
almost instantaneously. News reporters and broadcasters the world over use laptop
computers, videophones, the Internet and portable mini television studios to send reports and
pictures back from the most inaccessible areas of the globe within seconds.

The rapidly changing world of new media technology presents the law with new challenges.
Television broadcasts by satellite and cable systems are subject to the same regulations as
‘terrestrial’ television, considered at Chapter 17. However, the law of England, along with
that of most other jurisdictions, has not kept pace with the technology. Instead, the existing
law has been developed and extended in order to deal with new issues presented by new
media. More often than not these changes in the law are judge-made, brought about as a
result of litigation rather than Government legislation.

The Internet poses the most difficult questions for the law. Many users of the Internet
consider it to be a regulation-free zone that is not subject to domestic law or international
regulation. To a certain extent this is true. The global nature of the Internet makes it difficult
for individual countries to enforce their domestic laws. There is no international body or
court with the authority to create or interpret the law of the Internet. However, the European
Union and the Council of Europe as well as non-governmental bodies such as the World
Intellectual Property Organization have taken steps to legislate in respect of the Internet. In
addition, the United States of America is at the forefront of developing law and legislation
relating to the Internet.