What do audiences learn from tv and film about law?

Activity: Talk or presentation › Oral presentation

Description

A major part of the tv and film audience’s diet is formed by stories about crime and law. Focusing primarily on fiction, the paper discusses what audiences can learn from these. It draws on a range of social science and media theories but also on a series of studies the author has conducted in Germany and the UK. On balance, tv and film suggest that it is good to have law, courts, and other institutions as well as the various professions involved. A predominantly positive picture is drawn, despite the need to have worthy opponents, “injustice figures” to use the term of Nicole Rafter, to produce interesting drama. Some subgenres do, though, paint a darker picture, namely, court martial films and films after notorious legal cases. Nevertheless, all in all, the audience learns to trust in the law, its personnel and institutions, but not blindly.
Period15 Jul 2022
Event title“Rage, Reckoning and Remedy” Global Meeting on Law and Society
Event typeConference
LocationLisbon, PortugalShow on map
Degree of RecognitionInternational

Keywords

  • Sociology of law
  • Law and popular culture
  • Law in film
  • Law on television
  • Visual criminology

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