• UNIVERSITY OF LUSAKA

SCHOOL OF LAW

L270 – MEDIA LAW

UNIT 1: INTRODUCTION TO MEDIA LAW

George Mpundu Kanja

[email protected]

• What is Media Law?

• Media Law is the law that regulates or governs the print and broadcast
(electronic) media and other issues the covers, surrounds or has a bearing
on the print and broadcast media such as the press freedom, privacy,
confidentiality, defamation, contempt of court, information technology,
copyright, advertising.

• Media law is broad and encompass a number of issues.

• What is Media Law?

• Electronic media and print media include:

• Broadcasting, in the narrow sense, for radio and television.

• Many instances of various types of recorded discs or tapes. In the 20th

century, these were mainly used for music, Video and computer uses
followed.

• Film, most often used for entertainment, but also for documentaries.

• The Internet, which has many uses and presents both opportunities and
challenges. Examples can include Blogs and podcasts (such as news, music,
pre-recorded speech, and video)

• What is Media Law?

• Mobile phones, which can be used for rapid breaking news and short clips of
entertainment like jokes, horoscopes, alerts, games, music, and advertising
• Publishing, including electronic publishing

• Video games, which have developed into a mass form of media since
cutting-edge devices such as the PlayStation 3.

• History of the Print & Broadcast Media

• The print media has a relatively long history and its roots can be traced back
to the 1400 before the advent of printing technology, which permitted the
printing of a large number of copies faster and at relatively little expensive.

• 1n 1945 Johannes Gutenberg printed the first book on a printing press with
movable type in 1453.

• This invention transformed the way the world received printed materials,
although books remained too expensive really to be called a mass-medium
for at least a century after that.

• History of the Print & Broadcast Media

• During the 20th century, the growth of mass media was driven by
technology, including that which allowed much duplication of material.

• Physical duplication technologies such as printing, record pressing and film

duplication allowed the duplication of books, newspapers and movies at low
prices to huge audiences.

• Radio and television allowed the electronic duplication of information for

the first time.

• Purpose of the Media

• Media perform various services which include:

 Advocacy, both for business and social concerns. This can include
advertising, marketing, propaganda, public relations, and political
communication.

 Entertainment traditionally through performances of acting, music, and

sports, along with light reading; since the late 20th century also through
video and computer games.
 Public service announcements.

• Journalism

• Journalism is the discipline of collecting, analyzing, verifying and

presenting information regarding current events, issues and people.

• Those who practice journalism are known as journalists.

• Public Relations

• Public relations is the art and science of managing communication

between an organization and its key publics to build, manage and
sustain its positive image.

• Examples include:

• Corporations use marketing public relations to convey information about the

products they manufacture or services they provide to potential customers to
support their direct sales efforts. Typically, they support sales in the short
and long term, establishing and burnishing the corporation's branding for a
strong, ongoing market.

• Broadcast

• Broadcasting is the distribution of audio and/or video signals which

transmit programs to an audience.

• Receiving parties may include the general public or a relatively large subset
of the whole, such as children or young adults.

• The sequencing of content in a broadcast is called a schedule.

• Broadcast

• Television and radio programs are distributed through radio broadcasting

over frequency bands that are highly regulated by the Government or
Agencies such as Zambia Information and Communications Technology
Authority (ZICTA), Independence Broadcasting Authority (IBA).
• Such regulation includes determination of the width of the bands, range,
licencing, types of receivers and transmitters used, and acceptable
content.

• Broadcast

• Cable programs are often broadcast simultaneously with radio and

television programs, but have a more limited audience.

• By coding signals and having decoding equipment in homes, cable also

enables subscription-based channels and pay-per-view services.

• Broadcast

• A broadcasting organisation may broadcast several programs at the same

time, through several channels (frequencies), for example BBC One and
Two.

• On the other hand, two or more organisations may share a channel and each
use it during a fixed part of the day.

• Digital radio and digital television may also transmit multiplexed

programming, with several channels compressed into one ensemble.

• Webcasting: When broadcasting is done via the Internet the term

webcasting is often used.

• Internet

• The Internet (also known simply as "the Net" or less precisely as "the Web")
is a more interactive medium of mass media, and can be briefly
described as "a network of networks".

• Specifically, it is the worldwide, publicly accessible network of

interconnected computer networks that transmit data by packet switching
using the standard Internet Protocol (IP).

• It consists of millions of smaller domestic, academic, business, and

governmental networks, which together carry various information and
 services, such as electronic mail, online chat, file transfer, and the
interlinked Web pages and other documents of the World Wide Web.

• Internet

• Contrary to some common usage, the Internet and the World Wide Web are
not synonymous: the Internet is the system of interconnected computer
networks, linked by copper wires, fiber-optic cables, wireless connections
etc.; the Web is the contents, or the interconnected documents, linked by
hyperlinks and URLs.

• The World Wide Web is accessible through the Internet, along with many
other services including e-mail, file sharing and others described below.

• Internet

• The internet is quickly becoming the center of mass media. Everything

is becoming accessible via the internet.

• Instead of picking up a newspaper, or watching the 10 o'clock news,

people will log onto the internet to get the news they want, when they
want it.

• Many workers listen to the radio through the internet while sitting at their
desk. Games are played through the internet.

• Blogs (Web Logs)

• Blogging has become a huge form of media. A blog is a website, usually

maintained by an individual, with regular entries of commentary,
descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video.

• Entries are commonly displayed in reverse chronological order. Many blogs

provide commentary or news on a particular subject; others function as more
personal online diaries.

• Mobile
• Mobile phones were introduced in Japan in 1979 but became a mass media
only in 1998 when the first downloadable ringing tones were introduced
in Finland.

• Soon most forms of media content were introduced on mobile phones, and
today the total value of media consumed on mobile towers over that of
internet content. The mobile media content includes music (ringing tones,
ringback tones, truetones, MP3 files, karaoke, music videos, music
streaming services etc); mobile gaming; and various news, entertainment
and advertising services.

• Mobile

• Similar to the internet, mobile is also an interactive media, but has far wider
reach, with 3.3 billion mobile phone users at the end of 2007 to 1.3 billion
internet users (source ITU).

• Like email on the internet, the top application on mobile is also a personal
messaging service, but SMS text messaging is used by over 2.4 billion
people.

• Practically all internet services and applications exist or have similar cousins
on mobile, from search to multiplayer games to virtual worlds to blogs.

• Forms of Electronic Broadcasting

• Historically, there have been several different types of electronic

broadcasting mediums:

• Telephone broadcasting (1881–1932): the earliest form of electronic

broadcasting (not counting data services offered by stock telegraph
companies from 1867, if ticker-tapes are excluded from the definition).

• Telephone broadcasting began with the advent of Théâtrophone ("Theatre

Phone") systems, which were telephone-based distribution systems allowing
subscribers to listen to live opera and theatre performances over telephone
lines, created by French inventor Clément Ader in 1881.

• Forms of Electronic Broadcasting

• Radio broadcasting (experimentally from 1906, commercially from 1920):
radio broadcasting is an audio (sound) broadcasting service, broadcast
through the air as radio waves from a transmitter to an antenna and,
thus, to a receiving device.

• Stations can be linked in radio networks to broadcast common

programming, either in syndication or simulcast or both.

• Television broadcasting (experimentally from 1925, commercially from the

1930s): this video-programming medium was long-awaited by the general
public and rapidly rose to compete with its older radio-broadcasting sibling.

• Forms of Electronic Broadcasting

• Cable radio (also called "cable FM", from 1928) and cable television (from
1932): both via coaxial cable, serving principally as transmission mediums
for programming produced at either radio or television stations, with limited
production of cable-dedicated programming.

• Satellite television (from circa 1974) and satellite radio (from circa 1990):
meant for direct-to-home broadcast programming (as opposed to studio
network uplinks and downlinks), provides a mix of traditional radio or
television broadcast programming, or both, with satellite-dedicated
programming.

• Webcasting of video/television (from circa 1993) and audio/radio (from

circa 1994) streams: offers a mix of traditional radio and television station
broadcast programming with internet-dedicated webcast programming.

• Forms of Electronic Broadcasting

• Economically there are a few ways in which stations are able to broadcast
continually. Each differs in the method by which stations are funded:

 in-kind donations of time and skills by volunteers (common with community

broadcasters)

 direct government payments or operation of public broadcasters

 indirect government payments, such as radio and television licenses

 grants from foundations or business entities

 selling advertising or sponsorships

 public subscription or membership

• Publishing

• Publishing is the industry concerned with the production of literature or

information – the activity of making information available for public
view. In some cases, authors may be their own publishers.

• Traditionally, the term refers to the distribution of printed works such as

books and newspapers. With the advent of digital information systems and
the Internet, the scope of publishing has expanded to include websites,
blogs, and the like.

• Publishing

• As a business, publishing includes the development, marketing, production,

and distribution of newspapers, magazines, books, literary works, musical
works, software, other works dealing with information.

• Publication is also important as a legal concept; (1) as the process of giving

formal notice to the world of a significant intention, for example, to marry or
enter bankruptcy, and; (2) as the essential precondition of being able to
claim defamation; that is, the alleged libel must have been published.

• Publishing

• A book is a collection of sheets of paper, parchment or other material with a

piece of text written on them, bound together along one edge within covers.

• A book is also a literary work or a main division of such a work. A book

produced in electronic format is known as an e-book.

• Publishing

• Magazine
• A magazine is a periodical publication containing a variety of articles,
generally financed by advertising and/or purchase by readers.

• Magazines are typically published weekly, biweekly, monthly, bimonthly or

quarterly, with a date on the cover that is in advance of the date it is actually
published. They are often printed in color on coated paper, and are bound
with a soft cover.

• Publishing

• Magazines fall into two broad categories: consumer magazines and

business magazines.

• In practice, magazines are a subset of periodicals, distinct from those

periodicals produced by scientific, artistic, academic or special interest
publishers which are subscription-only, more expensive, narrowly limited in
circulation, and often have little or no advertising.

• Magazines can be classified as:

• General interest magazines (e.g. Zambian Economist, Chengelo, etc)

• Special interest magazines (women's, sports, business, Nkhani, etc)

• Publishing

• Newspaper

• A newspaper is a publication containing news and information and

advertising, usually printed on low-cost paper called newsprint.

• It may be general or special interest, most often published daily or weekly.

• The first printed newspaper was published in 1605, and the form has thrived
even in the face of competition from technologies such as radio and
television.

• Recent developments on the Internet are posing major threats to its business
model, however.
• Paid circulation is declining in most countries, and advertising revenue,
which makes up the bulk of a newspaper's income, is shifting from print to
online.

THANKS