398

Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 91(2)

The next chapter is devoted to a wide-ranging exploration of civic cosmopolitan-

ism as both an opportunity and challenge for web journalism. Dahlgren sets out the
distinctions between cosmopolitanism and the more familiar concept of globalization.
He describes it as a moral perspective for looking at social behavior toward others
that takes on increasing relevance as global others increasingly become a part of our
everyday worlds. He uses Roger Silverstones concept of the mediapolis as an
alternative to the Habermasian public sphere, and then elaborates on some of the chal-
lenges for journalistic traditions in the face of massively expanded perspectives on
what can and should be presented as the truth in a multi-epistemic world.
Although it is pretty clear from the beginning that Dahlgren is a critical scholar, his
concluding chapters remove any uncertainty that might remain among his readers.
Before turning to an assessment of the challenges that confront those who would pur-
sue critical media research, Dahlgren leads us through the somewhat tangled under-
brush in which there is buried some insight into the nature of the subject as citizen.
Although there is something to be gained by using the four thematic frameworks he
sets out for the reader (rationalism, reflexivity, transparency, and contingency), even
Dahlgren admits that each has serious limitations, and none can rise to a position of
superiority as a basis for understanding human agency.
Fortunately, Dahlgrens concluding chapter is a bit more optimistic with regard to
the possibility of resurgence in critical media research. After a brief presentation of the
history and associated trajectories of the critical project within the social sciences
more generally, Dahlgren describes some of the critical trajectories within media
research, beginning with political economy and the work of Dallas Smythe and Herbert
Schiller, but somewhat surprisingly ignoring the contributions of Nicholas Garnham.
After a brief reference to Habermas and an idealized public sphere, he turns somewhat
hesitantly toward what he refers to as the culturalogical current and its relationship
to the critique of ideology.
Dahlgrens final words are optimistic, or at least hopeful. He suggests that when
critical research is at its best, it can yield not only practical knowledge and interpretive
understanding but also insight into the possibilities for change.
Graduate students, and yes, their advisers as well, are likely to benefit from the
examples of evenhanded and comprehensive scholarly engagement on display
throughout this text.

The Press and Rights to Privacy: The First Amendment Freedoms vs. Invasion of
Privacy Claims. Erin K. Coyle. El Paso, TX: LFB Scholarly Publishing,
2012. 219 pp. $67 hbk.

Reviewed by: Roy S. Gutterman, Syracuse University, NY, USA

DOI: 10.1177/1077699014531200

Between Edward Snowdens National Security Agency leaks and recent revelations
that cyber hackers have stolen credit card data from possibly tens of millions of
Book Reviews 399

Americans, the concept of privacy has not only found its way back into the news, but
is part of the national and international debate.
Privacy has been part of the American legal landscape since future Supreme Court
Justice Louis Brandeis and his law partner Samuel Warren wrote legal scholarships
most famous law review article in 1890, laying out much of what would become the
first vestiges of privacy law.
But the twenty-first-century conception of privacy is certainly different from that
right to be left alone Brandeis and Warren first hatched. These legal trailblazers likely
would have taken a dim view of modern tabloid and reality television and probably
would have cringed at social media, online aggregators, and even computer search
engines. In their view, such invasions should give rise to a private cause of action
under tort law.
Common law privacy law, the subject of Erin K. Coyles book, The Press and
Rights to Privacy: The First Amendment Freedoms vs. Invasion of Privacy Claims
may be a quaint legal anachronism in the modern world. However, it is definitely
worth thoroughly exploring as Coyle, an assistant professor in the Manship School of
Mass Communication at Louisiana State University, has done.
Balancing personal privacy with the presss interest is certainly no easy task. The
Supreme Court has wrestled with this less than a half-dozen times, mostly reiterating
the importance of the First Amendment. Coyle notes, Press freedom and privacy both
serve values considered fundamental for American democratic society. Free expres-
sion and privacy rights even serve some of the same values, such as autonomy.
In our modern world, it is hard to ask for privacy when you post your vacation
pictures on social media, seek fame on reality television, and blog about your daily
minutia. It is another thing to try to remain anonymous when nosy reporters come pok-
ing around or nameless, faceless government officials screen emails and metadata and
infiltrate online video game societies and have the potential to hack into just about any
electronic device, computer, or system.
Privacy has never been easy to define (maybe not as vexing as Justice Potter
Stewarts confusion over pornographyhe knows it when he sees it). Nevertheless, it
is still difficult to rationalize imposing civil penalties for publishing private informa-
tion about newsworthy subjects, especially when the First Amendment is infused into
the discussion.
Invasion of privacy basically comprises four tortscivil actionsdefined differ-
ently in every state: appropriation of image or likeness for commercial purposes; intru-
sion; false light; and publication of private or embarrassing facts.
For such a weighty topic, the Supreme Court has not acted often on the right to
privacy. While Coyle traces some of the legal concepts back to the earliest American
cases and the now famous Brandeis and Warren law review article, Coyle mostly
focuses on development of the law following a landmark Supreme Court case known
as Florida Star v. BJF (1989).
In Florida Star, a newspaper published the name of a rape victim in Florida. That
publication violated the states rape shield law and the victim sued the newspaper,
400 Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 91(2)

among other defendants, for damages resulting from the publication of that private
information.
Coyle explores how courts view privacy following the Florida Star case. Although
not a treatise, the book appears to review just about every reported judicial opinion on
privacy decided in state and federal courts since 1989. She also reviews much of the
other scholarship on privacy law from books and law review articles.
Like many of the judges weighing these issues, Coyle writes that courts attempt to
balance the constitutional right to publish and the torts that protect peoples privacy.
She writes,

As state and federal appellate courts have considered what legal standards should be
applied in their jurisdictions, they have examined the relatively short history of common
law privacy torts as well as a short list of U.S. Supreme Court cases involving privacy tort
conflicts with the First Amendment.

If the cases show anything, especially when the press is involved, it is the difficulty
of weighing such complex competing interests. The victim in Florida Star made a
sympathetic and compelling case. She was viciously attacked by a criminal and vio-
lated again when the press published her identity. The Supreme Court, though, also
viewed the First Amendment impact here, affording the newspaperand othersthe
right to publish lawfully obtained truthful information.
Although the First Amendment has indemnified the press in many tort cases, this is
not to say there are no privacy protections. Much of todays modern privacy protec-
tions are now found in a range of complex and complicated statutes from health care
laws to banking and finance regulations to electronic communications laws.
These statutory barriers provide the safeguards we expect in the modern world.
These laws may also offer enough protections under the First Amendment to allow
journalists to do what they do. But these are questions that might be ripe for a compan-
ion piece or sequel to The Press and Rights to Privacy.

Lifestyle Journalism. Folker Hanusch, ed. London: Routledge, 2013. 142 pp. $145 hdbk.

Reviewed by: Donna Harrington-Lueker, Salve Regina University, Newport, RI, USA
DOI: 10.1177/1077699014531201

In the destabilized world of contemporary journalism, disruptive agents are easy

enough to find. Digital dimes have replaced analog dollars. Gawker, BuzzFeed, and
other sites push content chosen for maximum social reach rather than importance to
the democratic process. Soft news and infotainmentalso known as lifestyle journal-
ismpredominate, increasingly blurring the lines between news and public relations,
advertising, entertainment, and marketing.