After a lot of scholarly work went into discussion of individual films and shows, into genres and some into research methodology, it is about time to look at the theories that can be employed to illuminate this area of popular legal culture. Sociology of law has a surprising variety of approaches that can be of help here. They can be rounded up by theories developed in film studies.
The systems theory of Niklas Luhmann states that society has its subsystems for law, media, art and so on and makes assumptions how systems are reacting to events and developments. It also consequentially defines society as world society, which chimes well with the international, almost universal appeal of some of the products of popular legal culture.
Why do people take an interest in the depiction of the law anyhow? Here, we can draw on Durkheim’s sociological theory in which basically every member of society has an interest to see the key social norms upheld. Where there is increased social change, this motivation is only to get stronger. Later approaches add to this the fairness of procedures employed by the authorities and the qualities of decision-makers. All this is mirrored in numerous law-related films and TV shows.
A theory of entertainment values can be used to understand what kind of stories on law are being told. It has similarities to Niklas Luhmann’s news value criteria among which conflict and deviance from norms are already mentioned.