Handbook - Censorship, Contempt and the Media

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Overview

This course is concerned with laws that impose significant legal restrictions upon what the media, or other communicators to large-scale audiences, may publish under Australian law. The focus is on traditional mass media, though due attention is made to the emergence of new technologies of electronic communication. The course begins with some consideration of the meaning or meanings of freedom of expression and the extent to which it is protected in general terms under Australian constitutional law. The focus then turns to specific laws having a significant daily impact on the contents of publications. Many of the topics have a long, if not necessarily distinguished, history in English and Australian law. But some of the restrictions being studied are of very recent origin: for example, it was only in 1989 that specific restrictions on publications inciting racial hatred were introduced into New South Wales.

Main Topics