Kirjahaku

This book critically confronts perceptions that social media has become a ‘wasteland’ for young people. Law has become preoccupied with privacy, intellectual property, defamation and criminal behaviour in and through social media. In the case of children and youth, this book argues, these preoccupations – whilst important – have disguised and distracted public debate away from a much broader, and more positive, consideration of the nature of social media. In particular, the legal tendency to consider social media as ‘dangerous’ for young people – to focus exclusively on the need to protect and control their online presence and privacy, whilst tending to suspect, or to criminalise, their use of it – has obscured the potential of social media to help young people to participate more fully as citizens in society. Drawing on sociological work on the construction of childhood, and engaging a wide range of national and international legal material, this book argues that social media may yet offer the possibility of an entirely different – and more progressive –conceptualisation of children and youth.

Television is often cited as a cause of violent crime or behaviour. Usually, this connection is made in the context of the behaviour of young people - as another way of blaming them for the broader ills of society. It is rare, however, for even a single reference to television to be included in the index of reports on juvenile crime. Television, it seems, is presented as an increasingly influential force in society, even though there has been scant discussion on how it really influences the behaviour of young people. Brian Simpson seeks to redress the balance and investigates why television has become a welcome scape-goat.

This book critically confronts perceptions that social media has become a ‘wasteland’ for young people. Law has become preoccupied with privacy, intellectual property, defamation and criminal behaviour in and through social media. In the case of children and youth, this book argues, these preoccupations – whilst important – have disguised and distracted public debate away from a much broader, and more positive, consideration of the nature of social media. In particular, the legal tendency to consider social media as ‘dangerous’ for young people – to focus exclusively on the need to protect and control their online presence and privacy, whilst tending to suspect, or to criminalise, their use of it – has obscured the potential of social media to help young people to participate more fully as citizens in society. Drawing on sociological work on the construction of childhood, and engaging a wide range of national and international legal material, this book argues that social media may yet offer the possibility of an entirely different – and more progressive –conceptualisation of children and youth.

"Cannibalism and the Common Law" is an enthralling classic of legal history. It tells the tragic story of the yacht Mignonette, which foundered on its way from England to Australia in 1884. The killing and eating of one of the crew, Richard Parker, led to the leading case in the defence of necessity, R. v. Dudley and Stephens. It resulted in their being convicted and sentenced to death, a sentence subsequently commuted. In this tour de force Brian Simpson sets the legal proceedings in their broadest historical context, providing a detailed account of the events and characters involved and of life at sea in the time of sail. Cannibalism and the Common Law is a demonstration that legal history can be written in human terms and can be compulsive reading. This brilliant and fascinating book, a marvelous example of eareful historical detection, and first-class legal history, written by a master.