Mass Media Law 22nd ed. provides college students with a timely comprehensive and up-to-date examination of some of the most important principles doctrines and cases affecting communications law and the First Amendment freedoms of speech press and assembly. The book is packed with current real-life examples and the latest legal rulings that are relevant for students studying journalism advertising public relations telecommunications and other facets of the media and communications professions.
Read this for my communications law class. The chapters are dense, but the book effectively presents important concepts in U.S. journalism and media law, supported by key legal precedents.
2.5 - the cases and content are pretty interesting for a textbook, but the chapters are ungodly long and I spend most of my time skimming so I wouldn’t fall asleep
I use this class every year in my media law class -- great intro to legal concepts around the First Amendment, copyright, media regulation. Pember and Calvert do a nice job bringing this material alive with current cases and decisions. I hate that it costs so much money but I do require the latest version because of changing case law.
This is a tough book to get through, but I literally read it cover to cover. If you are reading this book for a Media Law course and the quizzes come from the book, I would strongly recommend using the Online Learning Center (www.mhhe.com/pember17e) to take the practice quizzes as the book does not always provide clear explanations. It's a long and grueling 640 pages!
This is probably one of the most interesting text books ever. Although we only had to read parts of it for my media law class, I ended up reading it page by page. But I guess if you aren't into communications law (censorship, copyright and such), this really wouldn't be too interesting.