Dr Peter Coe has given talks on his book, Media Freedom in the Age of Citizen Journalism, at the University Cambridge’s Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law, and at the University of Essex’s TechLaw Research Cluster. The official launch of his book will take place virtually at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies’ Information Law and Policy Centre, University of London, on the 11^th of May at 9am. As it is a panel session, Peter will be joined by Professor Paul Wragg and Rebecca Moosavian from the University of Leeds, Professor David Rolph from the University of Sydney, Professor Andras Koltay, who is the President of the Hungarian Communication and Media Authority, and Lexie Kirkconnell-Kawana, who is Head of Regulation of IMPRESS. For further details on the event, and on how to register, see: ILPC Seminar Series: Media Freedom in the Age of Citizen Journalism Book Launch | IALS (sas.ac.uk)

Dr Peter Coe has been appointed by the Council of Europe as an independent member of the Council’s Expert Committee on Strategic Lawsuits against Public Participation.

In this book, Peter interrogates how the internet and social media have enabled citizen journalism to flourish, and what this means for the traditional institutional press, the public sphere, media freedom, and press regulation. He argues that the law’s treatment of media freedom as a concept needs to be modernised, as citizen journalists are operating as media, but are not recognised as such. To facilitate this modernisation, he advances a new functional definition of the media that distinguishes media from non-media actors, and which provides a conceptual framework that recognises twenty-first century methods of newsgathering and publication. In doing so, he deals with some of the legal challenges this creates, including those arising from anonymous and pseudonymous speech, contempt of court, defamation, and how voluntary self-regulatory press regulation might be ‘reimagined’ to attract this new breed of journalist.

Dr Peter Coe has been appointed as an Associate Research Fellow at the University of London’s Institute of Advanced Legal Studies. Peter will be collaborating with the Institute, and its Information Law and Policy Centre, on a number of public events during the course of 2021-22 academic year.

From the 31^st of August until the 3^rd of September Dr Peter Coe convened the Media and Communications Law Subject Section at the Society of Legal Scholars’ Annual Conference at Durham University. Peter was joined by speakers from around the world, discussing subjects ranging from advertising in the time of COVID, to corporate reputation, to the development of privacy law, to misinformation and disinformation.

On Tuesday the 31^st of August, Dr Peter Coe formed part of an international panel of experts convened by the British Association of Comparative Law to discuss ‘The regulation of hate speech online and its enforcement in a comparative perspective.’ Peter’s paper discussed the UK’s Draft Online Safety Bill and its potential implications for free speech.

Dr Peter Coe has been appointed to the IMPRESS Code Committee for a minimum 3-year term (IMPRESS is the Press Recognition Panel’s approved regulator of the UK press industry). In this role, Peter will support IMPRESS’ comprehensive review of its Standards Code for journalists.

Upon invitation from the British Association of Comparative Law Dr Peter Coe will act as the UK’s 2021-2022 National Reporter on ‘Freedom of Speech and the Regulation of Fake News’. His report will be submitted to the International Academy of Comparative Law at the International Congress of Comparative Law in Asunción, Paraguay in October 2022.