EM/ProfLesley Hitchens AM

Lesley's main research area is communications regulation and she has focused on broadcasting and electronic media regulation. A particular focus of her work has been ownership and control and diversity regulation and in 2006 she published Broadcasting Pluralism and Diversity a comparative study of policy and regulation covering the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia. She has recently completed the second edition of a co-authored book examining English media laws, Media Law: Text, Cases and Materials. In 2014 she published Media Law in Australia, an overview of Australian laws affecting the media. More recently her research has focused on content regulation, especially ethical standards and the place of commercial content, and regulatory responses to the media broadband environment. Lesley has held a number of research grants, and has been involved in projects advising on media reform in Russia and contributing to the development of media law studies in Hungary. In 2008 and 2009, she was part of an international research project on media pluralism funded by the European Union. In 2008-2009 she also carried out research for the Australian Communications and Media Authority on regulation of advertising in relation to news and current affairs programming.