Books might not be judged by their covers, but a media's contents are regulated by its mode of communication.

Different legal and self-regulatory regimes apply to the content of broadcasts, periodicals, books, telephone services and computer networks.

This means that identical contents are regulated in different ways with different results, depending on mode of communication.Rationalisation of regulation is occasionally demanded intra-media; for example, the white paper on the future of the BBC proposed merger of the Broadcasting Standards Council and Broadcasting Complaints Commission.

In the future, more fundamental issues may need to be addressed.

Convergence of broadcasting, telecommunications, computer and print industries might generate calls for common regulation.

Past articles in this year's media law review series have highlighted the difficulties in adapting the current law to applications and opportunities afforded by technological change, as lawyers seek to regulate the hitherto unregulated.

Since industry is keen to develop the 'information society', it has encouraged discussion on the future regulatory framework currently embarked upon by the international community, by the G7 ministerial conference, by the European Commission, by national governments and by the regulatory bodies.Compression and convergence of regulators to mirror technological developments will not necessarily provide a satisfactory solution.

There may be valid justification for differing types of regulation or regulators.

The impact of any change on freedom of expression nee ds to be assessed.Currently, different legal and self-regulatory regimes apply to regulation of advertising and editorial according to classification of communications.

Limited access to the broadcasting spectrum and arguments based on the nature and power of media received in the home have, until now, been said to justify special statutory controls over who can broadcast and what can be broadcast.

Enforcement is achieved via the Independent Television Commission (ITC) Radio Authority, Broadcasting Standards Council (BSC), Broadcasting Complaints Commission (BCC), regulation of the BBC according to its charter and Oftel in respect of telecommunications services.Different versions of films for cinema viewing, home viewing by video and viewing by television in the home, as a result of different regulatory regimes and exercise of classification and censorship in respect of the different media, are currently the norm.

The print media has fiercely resisted press-specific statutory controls over editorial content, although it accepts self-regulation under the Press Complaints Commission.

Book publishers have no such code - even though newspapers' choice of book serialisations have on occasion sparked cries for stricter control over the press alone.

Recordings are subject to the general law (unless broadcasting rules apply), but no particular self-regulatory code.

Self-regulation of advertisements and promotions under the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has been accepted by advertisers, advertising and promotion industries and the print media, video and cinema, but there is a statutory regime for broadcasters.The evolution of new technology will affect all these sectors.

They all acknowledge that regulatory frameworks will require adaptation to accommodate future developments.

Such changes will take diverse forms, ranging from newspapers' calls for relaxation of cross-media ownership restrictions, to the Advertising Association's Project 2000 group of media, advertising and regulatory representatives who are exploring regulatory issues of the future.The development of the communications industry with the emergence of new forms of information transfer and content has focused attention upon whether such regulatory diversity should be maintained, given the overlap of shared content.

Newspaper publishers might produce a communication which simultaneously appears as a newspaper, as an on-line electronic newspaper, as additions to a database of articles, images and advertising, anthologised in a book or on CD-Rom, and also provide the text for news services for telephone services, cable, terrestrial, satellite TV and radio broadcasts to the general public or some selective or selecting section of it.

The Internet permits communication of text, images and sound.

New alliances are formed between sectors which might have been traditionally regulated by different regulators or subject to no regulation other than the general law - in so far as it governs the new product.Multi-media or interactive services consisting of editorial and advertising text, static or moving images and sound - on CD or otherwise - may be produced by new companies, or by co-operative ventures between traditional media and publishing sectors.

On occasion, such sectors might just be involved in their distribution, as when a CD is given away by a magazine.

Advertisers have new means of promoting their products to the consumer.

Direct marketing activities are no longer confined to telephone, mail or even home shopping channels, but extend to interactive technology whereby the 'advertising' or 'marketing' message is created, in part, by the viewer.The distinctions between advertising, product placement or sponsorship will become more blurred; there are already questions of classification raised by the incorporation of commercial images into computer games.So who will now regulate what? As at present, no simple, unified regime might be possible or desirable.

Compatible amendment of legal and self-regulatory regimes, or mutual recognition, or means of co-operation, might continue to be necessary as editorial and advertising cross both media and frontiers.There are cogent reasons to relax both media ownership restrictions and, where applicable, content controls.

Media and information outlets will multiply to undermine traditional definitions and traditional justifications for regulation based on scarcity of access or fears of information monopoly.

Anomalous cross-media restrictions unfairly restrain some media sectors but leave untouched their competitors, new and old.

Why, for that matter, should newspapers' acquisitions of newspapers be so highly regulated when broadcasters' merger controls have been relaxed, and books or magazines never constrained by any special regime? Communications convergence argues against special regulatory regimes provided there is sufficient openness of access.

Transfers and mergers might be left safely to general competition law, although that might inspire calls for new national or European competition bodies.Relaxation of ownership regulation might shift attention to content controls.

Again, multiplicity of outlets and communications convergence provide arguments against such controls.

Scarcity and 'impact' might have justified special statutory controls over broadcasting until now, but such reasons have no relevance to the future information and communications industry.The print media would never accept such statutory interference with freedom of expression.

It is vehemently opposed to licensing or pre-vetting and could not accept 'due impartiality' requirements - its current self-regulatory code expressly preserves its freedom to be partisan.

In the multi-media world there is little danger of information monopoly.

Perhaps the appropriate precedent is set by those parts of it which are untrammelled by special legislative controls.

It might be better to appropriate the freedom long since won by that most traditional of publication, the book, with minor statutory adjustments in, for example, the libel field, to ensure that 'public interest' communications, in whatever form, receive the same type of protection under the general law as the newspapers and broadcasters currently enjoy.

This is not to say that self-regulation will not have its applications.The role of self-regulatory regimes will be crucial.

It is easier for self-regulation to keep pace with technological developments and changes in industry practice because amendments to codes can be more quickly agreed and implemented than amendments to the law.

Changes have already been made: the new codes of advertising and sales promotion, for example, state that the ASA's jurisdiction has been extended, not just to facsimile transmission but, more radically, to all non-broadcast electronic media, such as computer games.However, extension of jurisdiction is insufficient without extension of the mechanisms which make such jurisdictions effective.

Although the ASA is backed by the powers of the Office of Fair Trading under the Control of Misleading Advertising Regulations 1988, it has always acknowledged t he effectiveness of its constituents' own sanctions.

Newspapers have been acknowledged as the cornerstone of the system because of their refusal to carry advertisements in breach of the code.

The expansion of the ASA to direct mail has led to the inclusion of the Royal Mail within its constituent membership.

Such regulatory intermediaries may be lost as consumer communications develop, and commercialisation extends to computer networks such as the Internet.The international dimension has also to be considered.

Cross-frontier communication has already raised jurisdictional problems with respect to self-regulation and legal regulation.

This is receiving attention at international level.

The European Commission has launched its second round of consultation on whether it should take action on media concentration.

Its questionnaire asks whether the Commission should regulate not just the press or cross-media activities but interactive services as well.The Commission has so far disclaimed power to legislate on regulation of editorial content and journalistic practice.

It has denied that either can be justified as internal market measures and conceded that it lacks competence to legislate on plurality, even to promote such a key priority as development of the 'information society'.The European Parliament, parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe and committee of ministers of the Council of Europe have been less reticent in their encouragement of legislative action on either a European or national basis.

The Commission is also to publish a green paper on commercial communication in the first half of this year, which will look at advertising, sponsorship and other promotions and will need to take into account multi-media uses.