Cap. 579 Art. 2Interpretation. 

In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires:

"author" means the person who authors or co-authors any content disseminated by media;

"broadcast" means the transmission by wire or over the air, including that by satellite, of statements and or visual images, whether or not such statements or images are in fact received by any person;

"broadcasting licence" shall have the same meaning as is attributed to in the Broadcasting Act;

"defamation" is the communication of a statement that seriously harms the reputation of a person and includes libel and slander;

"editor" means when there is a person so registered, means the person registered as editor in accordance with article 19, and, when there is no person registered in accordance with article 19, includes any person responsible for the editorial or content control of any media;

"editorial control" means the exercise of effective control both over the selection of programmes or press publications and over their organisation, for the purposes of the provision of a media service;

"libel" means defamation by publication;

"media" includes all forms of dissemination of ideas, information or opinions on matters of public interest to the general public or to a portion of the public under the editorial control of an editor;

"media service" means a service where the principal purpose of the service or a dissociable section thereof consists in providing programmes or press publications, under the editorial

*See Legal Notice 150 of 2018. responsibility or the editorial control of a media service provider to the general public, by any means, in order to inform, entertain or educate;

"media service provider" means a natural or legal person whose professional activity is to provide a media service and who has editorial responsibility or editorial control in respect of the choice of the content of the media service and determines the manner in which it is organised;

"Media Registrar" means such person as the Prime Minister may, from time to time by notice in the Gazette, designate as Media Registrar for the purposes of this Act;

"person" includes a body of persons, whether it has a distinct legal personality or not;

"publication" means any act whereby any written media is or may be communicated to or brought to the knowledge of any person or whereby words or visual images are disseminated;

"publisher" means a person who owns or controls an enterprise publishing written media;

"slander" means defamation by spoken statements uttered with malice;

"written media" means any writing or print made by any device and includes any written media content distributed by any means both if distributed through electronic online platforms and if distributed by any means offline without the use of electronic platforms and any other means whereby words or visual images may be heard or perceived or reproduced.