COMS 611 graduate syllabus

Spring 2024, Radford University

Credits: (3)
Seminar:  T-Th 5:00 – 6:15 pm, HH 1006  (Via zoom on request by students)
Prerequisites: Graduate standing

Catalog course description: Survey of the legal and ethical constraints placed upon the content, form and transmission of messages in a variety of contexts related to personal, political, business and corporate life.

Instructor: Prof. Bill Kovarik, PhD. wkovarik@radford.edu ; billkovarik.com

COMS 611 – FOCUS

How will this class help you? What will you accomplish?  

  • Call it “defense against the dark arts” of law. How do you protect yourself from libel, privacy, misappropriation lawsuits? What is the link between ethics and the First Amendment?
  • The place to start is professional ethics. You will learn about ethical issues and best practices in advertising, public relations and strategic communication. Public relations already has a strong ethical foundation in the PRSA and the Grunig two-way symmetrical model.
  • Ethics also lets you understand the legal and regulatory environment for advertising and public relations. This is especially important given the challenges presented by new digital media.
  • Media ethics also addresses issues with the international frameworks for communications harmonization, such as the International Communications Association, the International Telecommunications Union, WIPO, Berne Convention and others. We’ll focus on UNESCO, GDSR and K2D research and interventions in conflict zones.
  • We’ll also learn to conduct law and ethics research and build a legal argument.
  • You’ll acquire teaching experience by assisting with the undergraduate COMS 400 Communications Law class. (Optional)

COMS 611 – Grading

Activities that count towards your seminar grade

  • Class participation / attendance — 15 %
  • Three short case briefs, law reviews, research updates — 30 %
  • Teaching papers or oral presentations 15% each
  • Comparative law / ethics research project 40%

COMS 611 – Policies

Attendance – If you skip ten percent of the classes your grade drops a letter.

Some classes may be online. We don’t know what turn the Coronavirus pandemic will take next.    We may need to move to synchronous or asynchronous zoom classes, or perhaps mix up the various class modes.    Online attendance means cameras on, chat on, and microphones mostly on for participation. Asynchronous recordings of online sessions will be available for some classes.

Covid – The policy now is that masks and vaccines are recommended. This is important for your health as well as mine.

Our motto in the time of coronavirus — Stay positive. Test negative.

COMS 611 – Readings and topics (tentative)

  1. Communications Ethics and Law – An overview of ethical traditions
    1. Balancing tests and ethical practices
  2. Communications Ethics and Law in the Constitutional context
    1. Civics, structure of courts, principles of law
    2. Jurisprudence: Absolutism vs Ad Hoc Balancing   
    3. Prior restraint cases
    4. Defamation and privacy cases
  3. Corporate communications history, ethics & case law
    1. History — Public Health, Abolition, Women’s Suffrage, AT&T Kingsbury Commitment, US Radium and Edward Bernays, War Advertising Council, Nestle global marketing, Johnson & Johnson crisis communications; and more.
    2. Ethics and practitioners in PR history — P.T. Barnum, Ivy Lee, Arthur Page, Edward Bernays, James Grunig
    3. Strategic communication case law — Valentine v Chrestensen, New York Times v Sullivan,  Biglow v Virginia, Central Hudson v PSC, Consolidated Edison v PUC, Nike v Kasky, Dominion v Fox
    4. Environment, public health, consumer rights — Edwards v Audubon (neutral reportage), CBS, Winfree v Texas Beef Group, Green Group v Schaffer, Blankenship v Fox, and other SLAPP and Ag-Gag cases
  4. Professional Ethics – Advertising, Public Relations and Journalism
    1. Institute of Advertising Ethics Statement of Principles and Practices
    2. Public Relations Society of America Code of Ethics
    3. Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics
    4. Images and Ethics – Examples of unethical imagery in the media
    5. IABC code of Ethics – Int’l Association of Bus. Communicators
    6. Chartered institute of Public Relations (UK) – Professional Standard
    7. Global Alliance for Public Relations and Communication management  – Principles of ethical practice
  5. Social responsibility and global media
    1. UN Human rights law
    2. Hutchins and MacBride Commissions,
    3. Basil Convention, Tshwane Principles   
  6. Government and public relations law & ethics
    1. Government use of social media
    2. State & local governments – Freedom of Information Act requests; press releases and privilege in libel; press access; criminal justice information and ethics;  free press – fair trial issues.
    3. Whistleblowers in government
    4. Religious use of public buildings
  7. Federal agencies advertising and public relations law, ethics and regulation
    1. Federal Trade Commission – misrepresentations, substantiation, telemarketing, green products and other regulations
    2. Federal Communications Commission – broadcast advertising
    3. Food and Drug Administration – drug advertising issues, esp. opioids
    4. Securities & Exchange Commission — tight regulations promoting stocks, bitcoin etc
    5. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms — dangerous legal product ad regulations
    6. Federal Election Commission — political advertising regulation
  8. Global advertising and corporate communications law, ethics and regulation
    1. United Nations treaties & conventions (eg, WHO Framework Convention on tobacco control; UNICEF advisories on baby formula)
    2. United Kingdom (ASA, Ofcom, PCC)
    3. EU European Advertising Standards Alliance
    4. Japan advertising and competition laws
    5. Content moderation in Latin America
  9. Global communications / NGOs
    1. Peace communications and global ethics
    2. Peace-building communications
    3. GDSR   – Media and governance series (James Deane, BBC)
    4. PCLMP – Oxford based international media law organization
  10. Digital privacy, marketing and targeted advertising
    1. Concerns about “Surveillance Capitalism”
    2. New digital consumer privacy legislation in Virginia, California
    3. Right to be forgotten EU
  11. Competition (antitrust) law and the new digital economy
    1. Traditional media concentration concerns
    2. Justice Dept. and EU antitrust suits v Amazon, Google, etc
    3. Section 230 and other “big tech” issues
    4. Competition law in news media and digital platforms (OECD)
  12. Intellectual property law and ethics
    1. IP basics, Berne convention and global copyright piracy
    2. Music copyright and mandatory licensing
    3. Copyright and digital media
    4. Trademark and Government speech doctrine
  13. Scholarship in law and ethics research
    1. The goal here is to write a final paper that could be presented at AEJMC, NCA or other scholarly organizations …
    2. … or to contribute a section or chapter to a book on Public Relations and Advertising Law and Ethics

About prof Kovarik

Professor Bill Kovarik earned a PhD in Communication at the University of Maryland College of Journalism in 1993. He has held teaching posts at Radford University, Virginia Tech, the University of South Carolina, the University of Ljubljana (Slovenia), the University of Western Ontario and Unity College.  Prof. Kovarik has also studied international comparative media law as a post-doctoral fellow at Oxford University’s  PCMLP Summer Institute. 

Professor Kovarik has also served as an historian, science writer, editor and reporter for daily newspapers, national news magazines, wire services and environmental publications; Board member for environmental and media organizations;  and was named among the leading pioneers of environmental journalism by Environmental Health News in 2021.

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