Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Speaking in Legal Terms: Chapter 11

Chapter 11 of Writing for Digital Media by Brian Carroll deals with the legal issues and matters associated with the digital age and all things internet. When starting to create our own websites (as well as our blogs and anything else we publish onto the internet) it is important to be aware of what is legal and how to go our creating information properly. While the chapter covers many legal terms and issues- such as privacy laws, safeguarding, and spam- in the digital world we live in, I will focus on the important terms libel, slander, and defamation.

While we as bloggers just starting out probably wouldn't be worth a big company suing over a libel suit, it is still important for bloggers and writers on the internet to be cautious of the law. For material to be considered libel, it must be three things:


  • the material must be printed or published
  • it must be false or erroneous
  • and it must be defamatory 
While the digital age deals mostly with written defamation, slander, or spoken defamation, is also an issue in dealing with libel. The three aspects of libel warn against and make internet bloggers and writers aware of how dangerous it is to ruin or harm someone's reputation in their written work. Carroll states in the book that "allegations of libel are included in about three-fourths of all lawsuits filed against mass media". With such a large number of suits, it is easy to imagine cases of libel in many sources of printed material, such as blogs, headlines, letters, or even conversations in online chat rooms. While Carroll goes on to state that many of the libel cases are thrown out, this is an important issue to be aware of when writing on the internet. 


Many celebrities such as Tom Cruise and the Olsen twins have experienced libel cases.


Do you think libel cases are more frequent in the digital age? Why or why not? What methods will you take to ensure that you are not harming someone's reputation before you publish internet material?  

No comments:

Post a Comment