This article suggests a multi-disciplinary framework for evaluating the political and constitutional legitimacy of both traditional and new media (such as Netflix, YouTube), and explores the double function of public law: supervising the media (television, Netflix or Youtube) and their regulators. By turning to insights from political theory and social sciences, the article argues that current discourse of justifications for (any) media regulation is exposed to two main flaws: (a) Lack of rationality or social facts (due to consistent governmental bias of over-estimate the risk posed by mass media, while underestimating the their political or cultural value) and (b) Insensitivity to the hidden liberal-democratic costs of media regulation – as a cultural regulation. It then suggests how decision makers (judges, regulators, and citizens) can and should evaluate the legitimacy or desirability of various regulatory practices – present and future – in a structured, fact-based method.

Our 2020 Annual Conference was scheduled to be held at the University of Wrocław in Poland on July 9-11, 2020.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the ICON·S Executive Committee has decided to postpone our 2020 Conference to 2021. Our next Annual Conference will take place from July 8-10, 2021, in Wrocław, Poland.
Procedural details regarding the organization of the 2021 Conference will follow in the months ahead.
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