Law and the Media - A Theoretical and Methodological Critique
| Autor | Maria Francisca Carneiro |
| Cargo | PhD in Law. Master's degree in Education and bachelor's degree in Philosophy |
| Páginas | 26-29 |
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BOOK REVIEW
GIES, Lieve. 2008. Law and the media - The future of an uneasy relationship, Routledge-Cavendish/ Glass House, 166 pages.
This book is a theoretical and methodological critique, based also on case studies of law and the contemporary media culture. It discusses the presence of the law in everyday life, which is attributed mainly to means of mass communication, including TV and the internet.
The writing is fluent and clear, which makes the work a pleasure to read. The organization of the text into eight chapters is well balanced, dealing with topics of interest. The chapters can be read independently from one another; although there is a relationship between them, it is not a narrow, linear continuity.
The author starts out by depicting the disturbed relationship (Chapter 1, page 1) which exists between the law and the media. There is an undeniable concern on the part of judges with the facts of law being transmitted by the mass media, causing an impact on the popular imagination, often in a distorted, sensational way. Headlines presenting a quick, superficial account of delicate, profound crises are an example of the tension which gives rise to the disturbed relationship existing between the law and the media. To make things worse, there are sometimes personal attacks on judges which are offensive and unfair. For these reasons, the lack of accuracy by certain journalists, as well as sensationalism, have been the object of academic research, which also looks at the question of what the object of the law is.
One of the factors that explain the powerful effect of the media on the law is the fact that ordinary members of the public have no direct involvement with the laws, especially with those referring to the administration of justice. What they look for in the media about the law is basically information and entertainment, and as a result they approach the legal system amid impacts, symbolisms and possible distortions (page 2). The frontiers between the law and the media thus need to be put into perspective, as popular legal imagination includes a wide range of notions about power, bureaucracy, justice and order (page
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5). Laws are unavoidable in everyday life, but the public's understanding of them can be deeply enigmatic, even mysterious (page 7). There is thus a growing awareness among members of the legal profession with regard to the public, although sometimes it is difficult to pinpoint the way in which the media treatment of law affects the public's behavior (page 9). The "media spectacle" should be considered a pejorative term, which takes in the worst evils and excesses of the media and demonstrates the triumph of emotion over reason (page 11), but the construction of public opinion is not the work of the media alone (page 14). The decline of the mass media and the advance of interactive means of communication are revealing new forms of relationship with the public. Thus various institutions of law and the administration of justice are taking advantage of advances in...
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