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This systematic review of more than 300 Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly (JMCQ) articles on media law since 1924 documents what a vital scholarly outlet the journal has been and continues to be for research on freedom of the press and speech. While defamation law remains a popular topic, journalism and mass communication scholars have expanded their focus to a wider range of media law issues, including privacy, copyright, student speech, journalistic privilege, free press v. fair trial, advertising, and issues involving other media. JMCQ has been refreshingly open to international and comparative law, moving away from a U.S.-centric approach to media freedom. The review highlights a decline in the number of media law articles published in recent years, possibly due to competition from alternative journals, manuscript length limitations, and the APA-style requirement. Nevertheless, media law scholarship remains essential, offering invaluable insights into the evolving legal landscape of media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The legacy of First Amendment scholar Margaret Blanchard deeply informs this article. During the latter years of her distinguished career, problems arising from regulations imposed by institutional review boards on scholars working in her field were among her deepest concerns. In her own writing and in public comments recorded by others, Blanchard articulated those concerns passionately and repeatedly. This article considers how IRB regulations on journalistic research methods might fare if subjected to the judicial scrutiny of a First Amendment challenge. Through analysis of relevant case law, the article considers critical elements likely to be at issue. Regardless whether the plaintiff in such a challenge could in fact prevail—given the possibility that case law on conditions imposed in return for government funding could be held to apply to the regulations in question—the analysis suggests that such regulations are at odds with American free-speech traditions and values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the course of the 1970s, Mobil Oil made The New York Times oped page the focus of a groundbreaking advocacy strategy to promote interests that went far beyond its immediate business objectives. This study considers that influential campaign in terms of its significance for intellectual history, particularly Mobil's efforts to reframe understanding of the marketplace of ideas in First Amendment theory and practice. Although other corporations produced advocacy messages in the seventies, none spoke so regularly on so many issues of public policy as Mobil did during that period. This research documents the way rhetoric was employed in Mobil's Times editorial-advocacy campaign to frame the corporate role in democratic processes as identical to that of the individual citizen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]