Law's Expression – Communication, Law and Media in Canada, 2nd Edition

This highly anticipated and compelling second edition of Law's Expression – Communication, Law and Media in Canada provides a timely analysis of the intersection of law, communication and media in contemporary Canadian society. In an era where freedom of expression and free speech frame some of the most important issues facing governments, regulators, media owners, and citizens alike, this book offers valuable tools for understanding and critical evaluation.

Framed through freedom of expression, the authors tackle the areas of privacy, reputation, hate speech, sexualized speech, and intellectual property, situating them in their historical, legal and social contexts; providing key theoretical constructs with which to make sense of them; and drawing out the particular challenges posed by digital media and online communication.

Featuring New Content
The second edition offers up-to-date information and uniquely Canadian case studies. It illustrates concepts using popular culture references making it an engaging and informative read for all audiences.

This accessible text demystifies the legal dimensions of free expression and free speech, discussing foundational concerns and emerging topics, including:

• The challenges in negotiating the line between what constitutes private and public communication;
• Key perspectives on privacy, surveillance society, and laws governing the collection, storage, use and dissemination of personal information;
• The careful balance between the right to express oneself freely and a person’s right to their reputation, as well as the possibilities and limits of the law in protecting that reputation;
• The testing and selective reinforcement of limits on expression through the censorship and regulation of obscene and indecent conduct and content;
• The proliferation of hateful speech in contemporary discourse and the challenges of regulating that through criminal and human rights law, particular in the digital era; and
• The increasing trend towards the “propertization” of certain forms of expression and the very building blocks of communicative practice through intellectual property laws.

Invaluable Insight
With its accessible style, critical perspective, and synthetic approach, Law’s Expression – Communication, Law and Media in Canada, 2nd Edition will be a valuable addition to the bookshelf of any communication scholar, media studies student, journalist or journalism student, law and legal studies majors, sociologists and sociology students, government analysts, constitutional law and human rights lawyers, and all those who seek to broaden their understanding of the changing landscape of communication in a digital era and the ways the laws governing free expression are used to navigate those challenges.