The article takes up the example of online news-services to describe the overall purpose of Germany's public broadcasting corporation within the new networks of electronic media. It argues that the rise of the Internet is an evolutionary jump in the history of media. For this reason the traditional constitutional regime of guaranteeing pluralism in broadcasting can no longer be applied as a rationale and justification. Rather, a new constitutional type of conflict of law rules should be inaugurated to cope with the rising economic competition between public and private online news-services.

As many disciplines in the humanities have experienced a focus on culture's impact in recent decades, questions surrounding the significance of media such as writing, print, and computer networks have become increasingly relevant. This book seeks to demonstrate that a media and cultural theory perspective can also be highly productive for legal theory. Thomas Vesting approaches law as an artificial and constructive element within culture and emphasizes the many possibilities that varied forms of media have opened to law, from oral history through to scripture, print and modern day digital...

This new textbook offers an important new guide to legal theory in its contemporary context. It reflects recent jurisprudential debates on what the theory of law should look like in a legal landscape where media and communication play an increasingly central role. Firstly, it offers a guide to the fundamental principles and basic concepts of the theory of law. In so doing, it lays the foundations of the legal theory; the formation of legal systems; and the application of laws. In the second part, these basic theoretical principles are explored through the prism of the contemporary context,...