Communication Law and Policy: North America

• Main Author: Gower, Karla K.
• Format: Other/Unknown Material
• Language: unknown
• Published: Wiley 2015
• Subjects: Canada; Greenland
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/9781405186407.wbiecc083.pub2; https://api.wiley.com/onlinelibrary/tdm/v1/articles/10.1002%2F9781405186407.wbiecc083.pub2; https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/9781405186407.wbiecc083.pub2

North America consists of 23 countries, including the United States, Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean Island nations, and Central America. The continent also encompasses several territories and possessions such as Greenland. The United States dominates the region, especially in the area of communication law and policy, with Canada next in line. Except for Cuba, all of the countries in the region are democracies, with most of the legal systems based on the US system, English common law, or French civil law. All of the countries have constitutions that protect the right of freedom of expression. The extent of the right in practice, however, varies. In the 2014 Freedom House classification regarding freedom of the press, 13 of the countries are free (56.5 percent), 7 are partly free (30.5 percent), and 3, Cuba, Honduras and Mexico, are not free.