Communication scholars and fair use : The case for discipline-wide education and institutional reform

A survey of 350 communication scholars internationally shows that, although scholars are increasingly aware of fair use and (when aware of it) benefit from the Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Communication Scholarship, they continue to suffer from confusion and ignorance about how to apply this feature of copyright law that is crucial to their work. Most are not aware of the code, although those who use it report success. The survey results point to the need for discipline-wide education and application of the code’s affordances for institutional reform.