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This study analyzes discourse about journalists’ privilege and libel law from 1894 to 1897 to explain how the press articulated the public policy rationale for legal protection at a pivotal moment in journalism history. To illuminate the relationship between emerging professional values and ideas about law, it applies the analytical lens of institutionalism. The study argues that the public policy rationale that appeared in the legal discourse surrounding these key legal issues was both a function of principled professional identity–building and a means of “institutional maintenance” intended to protect the press’s social status.

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a federal appeals court ruled that Target stores could sell a variety of products related to the life and legacy of civil rights hero Rosa Parks-books, a movie, and a commemorative plaque-without violating Parks' publicity rights. The court reasoned that even though Target was using her personal story, name, and likeness for commercial ends, the store did not need to seek permission from or share profits with the institute that owns Parks' rights because the items dealt with "a matter of legitimate and important public interest."The lawsuit, the ruling, and the court's rationale would have come as no surprise to readers of Samantha Barbas's Laws of Image: Privacy and Publicity in America. The lawsuit is a classic example of what Barbas, an associate professor at SUNY Buffalo Law School, calls "personal image litigation," a legal invention of the early 20th century that allowed individuals to challenge increasingly ubiquitous institutions of media and commerce that appropriated their personal stories or images. The ruling and its rationale also resonate with a key theme of Barbas's book: the challenge American courts have faced in striking a balance between individuals' freedom to project and protect their public images and the freedom to speak about public issues and individuals, even if doing so embarrasses or offends. Barbas interweaves American culture and law over the course of the 20th century to explain why the law evolved to allow control over one's public image and why courts set some limits on that control.The story is told in two parts. The first four chapters describe the rise of new social and legal concerns about personal image at the turn of the 20th century, in a country that was urbanizing, stratifying, commercializing, and awash in mass media. The following five chapters follow the evolution of personal image law-in libel, privacy, and emotional distress doctrine-from 1920 onward, as consumer culture took hold, an "image society" became entrenched, and courts more clearly articulated the legal principles protecting speech and the press. Barbas's story follows three "key players." In a starring role is the "elusive 'ordinary American'" who held a stake in the rising value of personal image and the law's recognition of harm from undue exposure. In supporting roles are the legislators and judges who created, expanded, and adapted the law to encompass new ideas about personal image rights, and the mass media, a frequent defendant in personal image litigation for intruding on everyday life and undermining secrecy and solitude.