Arizona State University expert directory

Erin K. Coyle is an associate professor of media law and the First Amendment in the Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. 

She has taught courses on mass communication law, media ethics and social responsibility, and journalism history since she earned a Ph.D. in mass communication from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is an author of Trager’s The Law of Journalism and Mass Communication, a leading mass communication law textbook, and she publishes research in top peer-reviewed journals for communication law and history scholarship. Working as a journalist inspired her teaching and research interests.

Coyle is an expert on press freedom, freedom of speech, information gathering rights, freedom of information, media ethics, and journalism history. She has published legal and historical research on threats to press freedom from government secrecy, challenges to journalists' abilities to access government information and places, and news leaders' advocacy for greater legal rights to access government-held information.

She also has published research on potential conflicts between free press and fair trial rights and potential conflicts between free expression and privacy rights. To address such potential conflicts, her research has explored the historical evolution of legal privacy rights and contemporary perceptions of privacy rights in relation to social media and smart devices.