Social Media: Foundations of the Cyber-Society and the Role of Law

In enabling the creation and rapid spread of social media, the internet has created a new social arena in which vast numbers of people are engaged. In common with other social arenas, such as the family, the school, the corporation, cyber-society is rapidly developing its own social structure of understandings, normative conventions, and regulatory mechanisms. This workshop will identify the key concepts that make up the cognitive, normative, and regulatory structure of the cyber-society, and consider the implications of these amorpohous and unregulated online social spaces for personal identity, freedom of expression, privacy, and state sovereignty. This workshop is convened in collaboration with the Programme in Comparative Media Law and Policy (PCMLP) at the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies.