The convergence of antitrust law and First Amendment law in the communication and information industries: Application of 'First Amendment geography' to the determination of relevant geographic market in antitrust law.

摘要

The dissertation looks at the convergence of antitrust law and First Amendment law. The author first looks at the possibility of using non-economic factors, specifically First Amendment considerations, in the determination of the relevant geographic market in antitrust law. Three possibilities emerge: (1) impossibility of considering First Amendment factors, (2) disparate treatment of First Amendment cases based on the model of de novo review of facts in First Amendment cases, and (3) disparate treatment of the mass media based on the industry-by-industry rationale used in antitrust law.; The author then investigates areas of First Amendment law where geographic boundaries have been drawn and looks at the rationale behind the courts' determinations of those boundaries. In this section, the dissertation develops a new term of art, First Amendment geography--defined as boundaries used in First Amendment law.; Finally, the author looks at ways in which First Amendment geography can be used in the determination of the relevant geographic market in antitrust law. The author proposes a list of non-economic factors that should be used in the determination of the relevant geographic market in antitrust law.; Generally, the dissertation discusses the mass media of radio, broadcast television, cable television, newspaper, and telephone and their relationships to antitrust law.