Social Media Risk and the Law

Susan Grantham is an Adjunct Fellow with the Centre for Social and Cultural Research at Griffith University. Her research focuses on the use of social media in public relations, investigating reputation management, crisis communication, and legal and ethical consequences with a focus on these evolving professions within government and pseudo government environments. She has more than 15 years’ professional experience working for and with government in strategic communications, crisis management and social media engagement. Mark Pearson is Professor of Journalism and Social Media at Griffith University and is a journalism and media law educator, blogger and author. He has written or edited eleven books, including six editions of Australia’s leading journalism law text The Journalist's Guide to Media Law (with Mark Polden, 2019), Blogging and Tweeting Without Getting Sued (2012), and Mindful Journalism and News Ethics in the Digital Era (with Shelton A. Gunaratne and Sugath Senarath, 2015).

Part 1 – Social media law and risk management: introduction and context Chapter 1 – Introduction – defining the boundaries of the theory and practice of social media risk Chapter 2 – Theory into practice: why is stakeholder theory important? Chapter 3 – Risk management theories and practice in social media Part 2 – Social media attributes contributing to opportunity and risk Chapter 4 – The role of the audience: embracing the opportunities that social media presents Chapter 5 – Managing legal risk in a wired world: general and specific approaches to minimising damage for stakeholders Part 3 – Brand and reputational opportunity and risk Chapter 6 – Brand, reputational management and defamation on social media Chapter 7 – Crisis communication and reporting Part 4 – Risks at the intersection of human rights, law and ethics Chapter 8 – Privacy in social media Chapter 9 – See you in court: fair coverage versus a fair trial Part 5 – Legal risks of social media in business Chapter 10 – Employment law – private versus professional social media risk Chapter 11 – Consumer and corporate law and social media Chapter 12 – Intellectual property law and plagiarism