Thesis (LL.M.)--University of Alberta, 1997. / In partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Master of Laws. Faculty of Law. Also available online.

Thesis (J.C.L.)--Catholic University of America, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 65-70).

With this piece of work an attempt is made to have a objective evaluation of the influence of South Africa's Bill of rights on the common law of Defamation. the following aspects are being highlighted: The general application of the Bill of Rights and its relevant sections; A comparative study of the application of Bill of Rights with special reference to the United States, Canada, India and Germany; The law of Defamation under a new legal order, with specific reference to whether the Bill of Rights does apply to Defamation and if so how will it change the current common law of Defamation. / Text in Afrikaans / Law / LL.M.

In the years following the death of the autocratic ruler Yuan Shikai (1859-1916), the flow of gossip surrounding political leaders in China’s urban spheres revealed an open, disorderly yet robust arena full of competing voices, agendas, and manipulations. My dissertation examines gossip as both a new body of public political knowledge and a means of popular participation in this politically-fragmented and transitional era. On the one hand, this body of political knowledge engaged a wide spectrum of Chinese society engaged with this body of political knowledge, and which fostered an uncontrolled playful citizenship in China’s urban spaces. On the other hand, this new civic participation prompted the fledging Republican state to curb the dissemination of information through censorship, legal avenues and political propaganda. I argue that political gossip played a constructive role in forming a participatory political culture, in developing state mechanisms to discipline popular knowledge, and in transforming shaping legal categories of defamation. Different fromAs opposed to other studies that analyze the formation of Chinese citizenship in the process of nation-building, my project contextualizes the popular political participation in the Republican era within a broader shift in political culture that was increasingly shaped by the entertainment media. Lower- class information traders and a commoner audience dominated in the gossip economy by actively producing and consuming narratives and opinions, without being restricted by state education and elite activism. My research thus offers a brand new bottom-up perspective in the studyies of Republican Chinese political culture. Chapter 1 examines the commercialization of “trivial information” by focusing on the rise of a commercially driven and professionalized group of gossipmongers across varying social-economic strata in the late 1910s and the early 1920s. The expansion of the community affected both the practice and mindset of gossipmongers in the industry. Chapter 2 shows how the entertainment interplayed with political significance in the early Republican gossip publications to involve more commoner readers in both knowledge production and consumption in this gossip economy. This unique mode challenged conventional top-down knowledge transmission and the sense of exclusivity in the field of knowledge production. Chapter 3 illuminates the state’s efforts at developing a new censorship system and tactics of moral persuasion for re-building knowledge and establishing moral authority in the late 1910s. I show that the central government was a functional authority in the cultural realm during the period of chaotic and fragmentation. Chapter 4 turns to the relationship between the mass media and the defamation law. It focuses on a 1919 case in which the Beijing government sued the Republican Daily for insulting the President. Although the state attempted to use the legal instrument to fix a boundary between playful and serious political discussion, the Press’ commercial pursuit and insistence on autonomy gradually transformed this means of taming into a mechanism of publicity. The last chapter analyzes the politics of visibility from the aspect perspective of political leaders who also drew on the discursive power of gossip by examining Jiang Jieshi’s coordinated effort to take control publicity surrounding his romantic life and wedding ceremony in 1927. In this new form of official political communication, a striking tension persisted between the attempts of to use the form and dissemination power of gossip as an effective technique of social influence and the unruly commercial adaptation of media narratives.

Defamation law‘s truth defence – the oldest, most obvious and principal defence – has failed Australian media defendants. Few who mount the defence succeed. Many, discouraged by the defence‘s onerousness, do not even attempt it. As a consequence the journalistic articulation of matters of public concern is stifled. This thesis argues that the limitations of the Australian truth defence are inconsistent with established freedom of speech ideals and the public interest in having a robust media. As a result society is constrained from enlightened participation in public affairs. This thesis proposes reforms to alleviate the heavy demands of the defence so as to promote the publication of matters of public concern and to strike a more contemporary balance between freedom of speech and the protection of reputation. These reforms employ defamation law‘s doctrinal calculus to reposition the speech-reputation fulcrum. While defamation law has for decades attracted reform attention, the truth defence has languished by the wayside. This thesis steps into the breech. The cornerstone of this thesis is a proposal to reverse the burden so that the plaintiff bears the burden of proving falsity of the defamatory publication where: the complainant is a public figure; the matter complained about is a matter of public concern; and the suit involves a media defendant. While this proposal is likely to dramatically alter the prevailing Australian freedom of speech/protection of reputation equilibrium, other measures are proposed to serve as a bulwark against the wanton destruction of reputation.

Reputational interests are protected against defamatory and injurious statements by the common law o f defamation, which permits the targeted individual to recover damages for the injury to his reputation. At the same time, this body of common law sets limits to the constitutional right to free expression of the person who made the penalized communication. However, since s.32(l) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms - according to the Supreme Court of Canada - restricts the Charter's application to the actions of legislative, executive and administrative branches of government, the Charter will be at best a bit player in defamation litigation governed by common law rule. This thesis deals with the tension between promoting free speech and protecting a person's reputation, i.e. with the questions whether the common law of defamation has achieved the correct balance between the protection of the individual's reputation and freedom of expression, or whether it needs to be modified in order to better accord with the Charter. A n important component of this thesis is its review of the decision of Hill v. Church of Scientology, where the Supreme Court of Canada addressed the question of whether defamation law needs to be reconsidered in light o f the Charter protection of free expression, and found the balance struck by the current law to be appropriate. A critical look at this decision, and more generally at the law of defamation itself, particularly its presumptions of falsity, malice and damages, will reveal the problems with the common law's resistance to making any major allowance for free expression. The author will argue that the Charter should apply to the common law in the same way as it applies to statutory law and that defamation law in particular would, in all probability, not survive the test under s.l of the Charter, concerning the justification of a limitation to a fundamental right. It will be concluded that the common law of defamation needs to be modified, i.e. that it must accord significantly more weight to freedom of expression in order to be consistent with the Charter. Insofar as the extent of such modification is concerned, the author will propose first of all to give the element of fault a more significant role in the common law of defamation. In addition, she will argue that the common law presumptions should be abolished. In sum, the author's reform proposal requires the plaintiff to prove not only that the words he complains of are defamatory, identify him and are published to a third person, but also that they are false, did indeed cause damage to his reputation and that the defendant acted with fault, i.e. intentionally or negligently, when publishing the defamatory falsehoods.

Thesis (M.A.)--York University, 2006. Graduate Programme in Interdisciplinary Studies. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 272-290). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&res_dat=xri:pqdiss&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:MR29620

Thesis (J.C.L.)--Catholic University of America, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 65-70).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Johns Hopkins University, 1937. / Vita.

With this piece of work an attempt is made to have a objective evaluation of the influence of South Africa's Bill of rights on the common law of Defamation. the following aspects are being highlighted: The general application of the Bill of Rights and its relevant sections; A comparative study of the application of Bill of Rights with special reference to the United States, Canada, India and Germany; The law of Defamation under a new legal order, with specific reference to whether the Bill of Rights does apply to Defamation and if so how will it change the current common law of Defamation. / Text in Afrikaans / Law / LL.M.