Introduction to Research Handbook on EU Media Law and Policy: understanding the EU approach to media law and policy. The scope of the Handbook and a presentation of the contributions

Abstract

Defining EU media law, and the broader concept of EU media policy, is more challenging today than in the past, and inevitably includes dealing with the construction and interpretation of the regulation of digital services, also in a de iure condendo perspective. It must be stressed, that the field of digital services regulation not only affects an increasingly decisive economic sector, but goes beyond mere market issues, investing the social and political significance of media and “non-media” platforms.1 In fact, the media ecosystem has faced an obvious metamorphosis and a deep disruption over the last three decades. The extraordinary evolution of audiovisual and communication services has probably precipitated the conditions for wider EU intervention and jurisdiction in a field where national member states, taken in isolation, risk being overwhelmed.2 This is a primary reason why the Handbook will have to explore and compare several pieces of European legislation having an impact on the “media” sector, defined in a broad sense for its capacity to influence the public opinion at large. Among those different legal fields reaching toward the media, we can immediately list: competition rules, rules on electronic communications, rules on e-Commerce, data protection regulation, copyright, to mention only the most important. All this essentially indirect influence exercised by many EU legal fields