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Course

Media and Communications Industry Regulation - LAWS8054

Faculty: Faculty of Law

School: Faculty of Law

Course Outline: See below

Campus: Sydney

Career: Postgraduate

Units of Credit: 6

EFTSL: 0.12500 (more info)

Indicative Contact Hours per Week: 2

Enrolment Requirements:

Academic Program must be 9231 or 5231 or 9220 or 5750 or 9200 or 5740 or 9210 or 9230 or 9214 or 5214.

CSS Contribution Charge: 3 (more info)

Tuition Fee: See Tuition Fee Schedule

Further Information: See Class Timetable

View course information for previous years.

Description

The Media and Communications industry players operate in a network of direct, co-, and self regulation which continues to change rapidly in response to technological, structural and social change. This course will look in detail at that regulation, particularly in the telecommunications and broadcasting industries and seek to answer the hard question of where it's all going.


LLM Specialisation

Recommended Prior Knowledge

Study of media and communications law at undergraduate level.

Course Objectives

The course proposes to teach law students about the network of regulation that affects the media and communications industries in Australia, particularly the broadcasting and telecommunications industries. The course aims to identify regulation that is legislative, co-regulatory and self regulatory and contrast these different approaches. The specific knowledge will be taught against the backdrop of key values, issues and concepts such as free speech, the need for a plurality of views in a democratic society, media power and influence, digitization and the rapid technological and structural convergence thus challenging students to ask and develop answers to the questions of why, who, what and how we regulate these industries.

Main Topics

Carriage Regulation
  • Intro to key technical concepts and systems in telecommunications
  • Access to infrastructure, services and spectrum.
  • Interconnection issues and pricing
  • Anti-Competitive conduct
  • Consumer Protection mechanisms
Content Regulation
  • Role and powers of ACMA
  • Digitally delivered television, radio and new services
  • Media Ownership and Control policy, rules and regulations
  • Models of content regulation across delivery platforms
  • Classification systems, codes, standards and licence conditions
  • Non-broadcasting services and cracks in the regulatory system

Assessment

  • Class presentation 40%
  • Research Essay 60% (3000) words

Course Texts

Prescribed
Australian Telecommunications Regulation: Communications Law Centre Guide, UNSW Press, 2004 ,3rd edition.

Recommended
  • Lexis Nexus, Communications Law and Policy In Australia, Leonard P, Henderson A (loose leaf) 1987.
  • Oxford University Press, Connect and Converge: Australian Media and Communications Law, 2007, Scott Beatie and Elizabeth Beale, 1st edition: Chapters 1 and 2
  • There will also be a pack of photocopied materials which have to be purchased from the UNSW Law Faculty.

Resources

All materials for this course will be available on Moodle.
Law Books

Study Levels

Undergraduate Study Postgraudate Study Postgraduate Research Study Non-Award Study

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