T504 is the starting point for the graduate-level study of
telecommunications law, policy, economics and technology in the
Department of Telecommunications It is part of the set of core
classes applicable to most graduate programs in the department and
prepares students for more advanced law and policy courses at the
500 and 600 level.

Although focused on the U.S. electronic media, this course considers
U.S. telecommunications law and policy in its increasingly global
context.  It presumes an undergraduate-level knowledge of (1) the
U.S. legal and political system, (2) U.S. electronic media law and
policy, (3) the structure of the electronic media industries, (4)
electronic media economics and (5) electronic media technologies.
Students who did not study electronic media law and policy and the
electronic media industries in their undergraduate or masters'
programs will probably have to do additional readings, very early in
the semester, in order to get up to speed.  This is likely to be
especially true of graduate students entering our program from other
degree programs outside of the U.S.  The goal is to teach T504 at a
graduate level, however, so if you haven't had the appropriate
undergraduate background work, you will have to make that up, very
quickly, through additional, largely independent, readings.

The course begins with consideration of what policy is and how it
comes about.  We then move to an overview of major constitutional,
statutory and regulatory laws and policies that affect the U.S.
electronic media industries and media consumers.  Our emphasis here,
however, is largely on current dimensions of these areas.  It's
presumed that the undergraduate level work described above has given
you the necessary background to understand current issues and
controversies, although T504 is more theoretical but at the same
time more basic than T530.  We consider major legal and regulatory
theories for the electronic media (both old and new), with attention
to how those theories are stressed by contemporary convergence and
globalization.  It reviews how telecommunications law and policy
works in the U.S., the institutions involved in policy, and also
introduces students to basic legal bibliography and legal research
methods.