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Chapter 1: The American Legal System
Chapter 1
The American Legal System
This chapter introduces students to the law and the legal system in the United States. The
material in this chapter may be redundant for students who have completed a course in political
science or the judicial system, for pre-law majors, and for students who are studying
criminology. Such students, however, are rare.
While the material is basic and somewhat simplified, it is essential for students of media law.
The content of the chapter doesn’t lend itself to the kind of problem questions that are included
Highlights of Chapter 1
To help you and your students, Chapter 1 has four gray-shaded text boxes with handy lists of
items, such as the first text box titled “Five Sources of Law” and the second textbox titled “Four
Options for Handling Precedent.” The items in these lists may help you to organize both your
teaching and testing strategies for your class.
You’ll also note that some words appear in bold format, such as stare decisis. This format
indicates that these terms have definitions in the text as well as in the glossary at the end of the
book. The glossary has helpful definitions of many terms.
In addition to the glossary, a section at the end of the book includes a subject matter index for
easy reference. You can also find a table of cases along with the book’s online materials.
Some of the new material in Chapter 1 for the twentieth edition of the book is as follows:
1. New examples of equity law, including a restraining order against a South Carolina
reporter and a new gray-shaded box titled “You Can’t Say That Again!: Enjoining
Defamation” that describes how some courts are willing to grant injunctions that bar—or
forbid—speakers from repeating their defamatory comments
2. A new case that illustrates the void for vagueness doctrine
3. Discussion of a case in which the overbreadth doctrine was used in 2016 by the North
Carolina Supreme Court to declare unconstitutional a cyberbullying law that made it a
crime “for any person to use a computer or computer network to . . . [p]ost or encourage
others to post on the Internet private, personal, or sexual information pertaining to a minor”
“[w]ith the intent to intimidate or torment a minor.”
4. A new case example from the Supreme Court to illustrate the Court’s original jurisdiction
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Chapter 1: The American Legal System
What Should I Cover After Chapter 1?
Although Chapter 1 is a “must-read” chapter that provides essential, foundational reading
material for any undergraduate who is taking a course in mass media law, there clearly is some
material in the rest of the textbook that you may or may not want to cover in class.
In other words, you do not need to cover everything in the rest of the textbook, and you don’t
necessarily need to go in the chronological order of the chapters in the textbook.
Other than Chapters 1 and 2, you really can choose what to cover, both in terms of the chapters
selected and, sometimes, the material within those chapters.
What chapters you choose to cover may depend on the following factors:
• The length of your course (Is it a 10-week course, or is it a 16-week course?)
• The theme of your course (Is it a narrowly focused course on the “Law of the News
Media” or the “Law of the Press” targeting journalism students, or is it a more general
course on the “Law of Mass Communications” targeting majors across the communications
curriculum such as journalism, advertising or public relations, media studies,
telecommunications, etc.?)
• The target audience of students in your course (This is related to the previous bullet point.
Do you only have journalism students, or are there students from all communications
majors or from different majors such as business, political science, English, etc.?)
What Chapters Might I Skip If I Only Have Journalism Students and/or If I
Am Teaching a 10-Week Course?
If you teach a 10-week course or if your class is only comprised of journalism students, you
trademark (Chapter 14), advertising (Chapter 15), and telecommunications (Chapter 16). Clearly,
these chapters are not essential for someone who wants to be a journalist, although the chapter on
obscenity is very popular with most undergraduates and it might be used to break up some of the
rest of the material devoted to journalism.
In addition, Chapter 3 is a cafeteria-style chapter. It contains many different subjects and topics
that can easily stand on their own that you can select for your class discussions. For instance, the
heading in Chapter 3 titled “Hate Speech/Fighting Words” is not necessarily an essential topic
for journalism students, but it does have broad appeal, and it can serve as a diversity component,
given that hate speech is often targeted at minority students.
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Chapter 1: The American Legal System
What Chapters Must a Journalism Major Have?
It goes without saying that what you teach is up to you. However, our preferences for teaching
the course are as follows:
• In addition to the foundational chapters (Chapters 1 and 2) that are essential for anyone
taking a course related to mass media law, the chapters on libel (Chapters 4, 5, and 6) and
privacy (Chapters 7 and 8) are “must-read” chapters for all journalism majors. These
chapters discuss most of the lawsuits against the press, and they provide a solid
understanding of the libel and privacy torts that helps students become good journalists.
• The chapters that a journalism major “should” have (although you might drop one of the
following if time does not permit) are as follows: gathering information (Chapter 9),
protection of news sources/contempt power (Chapter 10), and free press–fair trial
(Chapters 11 and 12).
