Regulating Journalism in the Digital Age

Abstract

The research examined national and international legislation on activity of online news and the role of artificial intelligence in this sphere. Authors analyzed both international acts and recommendations, EU’s, India’s, Nepal’s, UAE’s, Kazakhstan’s and UK’s laws and ECHR’s decisions. The core concepts are liberal (European) and strict (Eastern). The European approach to mass media involves self-regulation and some basic state restrictions, whereas the Eastern system focuses on developing an allowed-content standards and controlling state bodies. The authors concluded that such a classification is quite vague since many countries have some features of both approaches, so that co-regulation arises. The authors underlined trends in formulating the concept and its regulatory aspects. Due to legal uncertainty and linguistic diversity of definitions, online media may include social network accounts, providers of audiovisual media services, websites (both electronic versions of printed publications and separate publishing houses) and other Internet resources. All of them must abide by the decisions of the Press Councils and the Ombudsmen, obtain licenses and follow the rules of prohibited content, developing its own system of tracking and rapid response (including via artificial intelligence).