Chinese Media Law 
For the last several years, PCMLP has been leading several initiatives focusing on media law and policy in China. Dr Rogier Creemers regularly publishes and gives public lectures on this topic, some of which can also be found on the China Copyright and Media blog.

PCMLP holds an annual media law moot court event with the School of Law at Renmin University. This event brings together universities and media lawyers from across China to debate cutting-edge issues in media law and policy. Seminars and workshops are often attached to the event, including the annual Oxford-Stanford-Peking Internet Law and Policy Conference.

Our research in China has been supported by a variety of sources, including the European Union and the Rubicon Foundation. The support from the European Union’s Initiative for the Defence of Human Rights, in collaboration with Peking University, Renmin University and the Great Britain China Centre, facilitated a number of workshops in Oxford and China, training of judges, and publications bringing together a network of universities and academics working on this area in China.

The project studies the changing nature of China’s broadcasting policymaking process from 2000 to 2010 and its implications for broadcasting policy. It investigates the dynamics behind China’s broadcasting policies with a focus on the functions of internal policy actors, structure and professionalisation. Theoretically, the object of this research is to explore alternative patterns from the top down and authoritarian model in explanting policymaking behaviour in China. Specifically, the project studies who has been involved, how policy is formulated, implemented and evaluated, and the effects of institutional structural changes and professionalisation on the broadcasting policymaking process. It aims to find out the impacts of decentralisation and localism on the broadcasting policymaking process, to explore the emerging policy actors, including lobby groups, research organisations and individuals, and to investigate how and to what degree they could contribute to the broadcasting policymaking process. Finally, it aims to examine the implications of changes in broadcasting policymaking behaviour for broadcasting policies, laws and rules in the areas of competition and access.


Chinese Broadcasting Policy in Transition (2000-2010): Actors, Structure and Process
The project studies the changing nature of China’s broadcasting policymaking process from 2000 to 2010 and its implications for broadcasting policy. It investigates the dynamics behind China’s broadcasting policies with a focus on the functions of internal policy actors, structure and professionalisation. Theoretically, the object of this research is to explore alternative patterns from the top down and authoritarian model in explanting policymaking behaviour in China. Specifically, the project studies who has been involved, how policy is formulated, implemented and evaluated, and the effects of institutional structural changes and professionalisation on the broadcasting policymaking process. It aims to find out the impacts of decentralisation and localism on the broadcasting policymaking process, to explore the emerging policy actors, including lobby groups, research organisations and individuals, and to investigate how and to what degree they could contribute to the broadcasting policymaking process. Finally, it aims to examine the implications of changes in broadcasting policymaking behaviour for broadcasting policies, laws and rules in the areas of competition and access.


Codifying Cyberspace: Communications Self-Regulation in the Age of Internet Convergence
The book Codifying Cyberspace is the result of a three year European Commission funded study in self-regulation carried out by PCMLP. Can the Internet regulate itself? Faced with a range of ‘harms’ and conflicts associated with the new media – from gambling to pornography – many governments have resisted the temptation to regulate, opting instead to encourage media providers to develop codes of conduct and technical measures to regulate themselves. Codifying Cyberspace looks at media self-regulation in practice, in a variety of countries. It also examines the problems of balancing private censorship against fundamental rights to freedom of expression and privacy for media users. This book is the first full-scale study of self-regulation and codes of conduct in these fast-moving new media sectors. Written by Danilo Leonardi, Chris Marsden and Damian Tambini, the book is published by Routledge.


Communications Law in Transition Newsletter
PCMLP published an extensive newsletter dedicated to technology, regulation, and media especially as they relate to transitions to democracy.
https://pcmlp.socleg.ox.ac.uk/archive/transition


Comparative Study of Costs of Defamation Proceedings Across Europe
This report examines how costs in English defamation proceedings compare to those elsewhere in Europe, and considers the extent to which the English media’s rights, as articulated in the European Convention on Human Rights, might be affected as a result of the level of costs in defamation proceedings.


Development of Media Skills in the Ukraine
PCMLP, in partnership with the BBC World Service Trust and other European organizations (IREX Europe, Dublin Institute of Technology, University of Lille), is taking part in a project which will lay down the foundations for a long-term exchange of know-how so that the education sector in the Ukraine can continue to benefit from the process of pedagogical innovation triggered by the Bologna Declaration of 1999. PCMLP’s specific contribution concerns the curriculum for teaching media law and regulation within the curriculum modernisation programme carried out by the project. PCMLP co-organized a conference in Alushta for Ukrainian academics and has conducted a needs assessment trip to Kiev to help tailor the contents of the media law course being developed.


Enabling Environment for Free and Independent Media
The existence of free and independent media is generally considered essential to healthy systems of democratic governance. But building such a media structure from an authoritarian past can be a considerable undertaking. This study by Monroe Price and Peter Krug is designed to identify the conditions and processes supporting development and maintenance of free and independent media, provide guidance for those who participate in the processes of encouraging democratic transitions, and indicate areas for further study.


Global Media Assistance Strategies
Funded by USAID, PCMLP served as primary organizer for a conference on media assistance held in Paris in February 2002. At the conference, members of the media assistance and development community came together to begin a large scale discussion on the effectiveness, purpose, philosophy, and practical basis for global media assistance. Two reports, the World Bank’s 2002 World Development Report, “Building Institutions for Markets” and the Enabling Environment for Free and Independent Media, formed the beginning of discussions and led to working group debates on pivotal areas of media assistance, including assistance during conflict, business management development, media law development, and donor coordination.


Hate Speech
Were government licensed and other mass media partly responsible for the massacres in Rwanda in the early 1990s, and what can be done to detect and prevent illegal uses of mass media to incite genocide, whilst protecting freedom of expression? In Spring and Summer of 2004, PCMLP was asked by the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office to collaborate with BBC Monitoring in developing a project that aims to detect and analyse instances of hate speech in world media.


Information Intervention
The Ford Foundation awarded the PCMLP a grant for institutional support and the preparation of a book on information intervention (2001-2001). This grant helped the Programme a. create a framework for understanding the background, mechanisms, and prospects of transitions in the media, society and their causal relationship; b. nourish and reinforce institutions in comparative approaches to media law and policy issues; c. help with legislative and policy assessments, d. assist independent media discover their role in legislative and policy making processes.


Legal Defense Project for South-East Asia
PCMLP, in conjunction with the International Bar Association, the University of Hong Kong and the Southeast Asian Press Alliance, co-organised a programme to train Southeast Asian lawyers in the field of media defense. The objective of the programme is to strengthen media freedom in Southeast Asia by building and strengthening national and regional capacity for media defense litigation.


Libel law and the internet in China
This project explores how China and the West have applied libel law to the Internet, including online forums, BBS, blogs, instant messagers and mobile texts, through analyzing the law, court cases and rulings. On the Chinese side, more than three hundred media libel cases and their court rulings will be examined. It investigates if and how the law has been applied differently to traditional media and new media as well as to societies in the West and in China. It discusses the origins of the reputation protection in the US and most Western countries and those in the Chinese tradition, and the libel standards for the public officials and private individuals in both China and the USA. More importantly it studies how law and court rulings have changed over time, and suggests socio-political reasons underlying.


Measuring the success of ICT for Development
Media, communications and information technology has emerged as a new focus in development aid budgets in the past decade. Whereas in previous decades specific projects have been funded that sought to promote information provision and media freedom, a new area has emerged, known as ICT4D – Information and Communications Technology for Development. In agencies like the UK Department for International Development and the World Bank, projects in this field have recently been the subject of intense controversy: is it justified to spend on communications projects when food aid might be a priority? Or is the provision of basic information and communications freedom a prerequisite for all economic and political development? Amid accusations that technology providers, rather than genuine need was driving the agenda the INFODEV agency of the World Bank recently suspended grants awarded in this field. The PCMLP has been commissioned by DFID to provide a high level report on the economics of ICT4D, and assessment of impact of these projects.


Media and Election Violence in Eastern Africa
PCMLP has been engaged in a comparative research project on media and election violence in Eastern Africa. We have also been exploring broader questions about media regulation during heavily contested elections. We have held a workshop on this topic in December 2008 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.  The workshop provided the opportunity to explore the election experiences of Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, Somaliland, Tanzania and Sudan in a comparative framework. The focus was on understanding why election violence occurred after some elections, what the role of the media was in either exacerbating or resolving disputes, and what this suggests about the broader political project and the state of the media in the countries under examination.  As a result of the workshop we published the following report.

We have also published research on lessons for Kenya from Somaliland. This research report The Role of the Media in the Upcoming Somaliland Elections: Lessons from Kenya, draws on research conducted in Kenya by a PCMLP team along with journalists from Somaliland. The report explores issues of media policy during post-election violence. The case of Kenya, where 1,133 people were killed after the 2007 elections, is comparatively considered to distill lessons for elections in Somaliland.


Minority-language related broadcasting and regulation in the OSCE
A report by PCMLP and the Institute for Information Law (IViR) of the University of Amsterdam.


Parental Control in Television Broadcasting
Study carried out by the European Commission as required by Article 22b of Directive 97/36/EC of 30 June 1997 amending Directive 89/552/EEC (Television without Frontiers Directive).


Pioneur Study on Intra-European Mobility
The Pioneur Project, financed by the European Commission under the 5th Framework Programme, concluded 3 years of research into aspects of mobility within Europe at its final conference which took place on 10th March 2006 in Florence.


Promoting Internet Policy and Regulatory Reform in Vietnam
Between May 2004 and May 2006 PCMLP participated in this project funded by EuropeAid Asia IT&C of the European Commission. Participation in this project took place in the context of a much larger initiative, GIPI – Global Internet Policy Initiative, which was an initiative of several years’ duration of the Center for Democracy and Technology and the Internews Network. The objective of the initiative was to assist a number of countries (e.g. Vietnam and others) in redefining and evolving their legal, regulatory and policy environment so that the benefits of the Internet, as well those deriving from related ICTs (Information and Communication Technologies) could be more rapidly and more fully realized by all sectors of the society. PCMLP participated in activities related to Vietnam.


Russian Media Law Networking Project
The UK Department for International Development selected PCMLP to manage the “Russia Regional Media Law Networking Project” that seeks to pilot a press council in the provincial city of Nizhny Novgorod and a media arbitration tribunal in Rostov-on-Don. This is a 3 year project. From the launching of the project the two provincial centres in Russia have been actively working towards raising awareness and disseminating information about the self-regulatory approach towards disputes over media coverage. The overall aim of the “Russia Regional Media Law Networking Project” is to rely on media self-regulation at the local level in Russia to help reduce judicial and administrative interference with the media, encourage higher journalistic standards and make available information about European regulatory models. The website at the Moscow Media Law and Policy Centre provides information on the project and relevant background material on self-regulation regarding the printed media. http://www.medialaw.ru/


Selfregulation.info (IAPCODE)
Selfregulation.info investigates self-regulatory codes of conduct across National, EU and International boundaries covering a wide range of media from Internet, film, video (games), (digital) television to mobile communications. The project assisted self-regulatory bodies in the development and implementation of codes of conduct. IAPCODE was funded by the European Commission under the Internet Action Plan.


The NGO and Academic ICANN Study
Funded by the The John and Mary Markle Foundation, “The NGO and Academic ICANN Study” (2001-2002) is an international project to review the nature of public representation in the Internet’s domain name management organization, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). The NAIS team began as an ad hoc effort in November 2000 by a global group of researchers to study the 2000 At-Large Election and to answer tough questions about the importance of public representation in ICANN’s activities. From November 2000 to August 2001, the NAIS team, with PCMLP as Secretariat, examined the details and effects of the 2000 election on a worldwide scale, consulted with diverse sections of the Internet community, and closely analyzed the roots of ICANN’s legitimacy online. The NAIS report, “ICANN, Legitimacy, and the Public Voice: Making Global Participation and Representation Work”, was released on August 31, 2001.


UNESCO Uganda project
The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Uganda (November 1998): UNESCO awarded the Programme a small grant to prepare a conceptual framework for the integration of communication and information services in Uganda within the set priority objectives established by the Government.