Explaining the Absence of the Media in Stories of Law and Legal Consciousness
Year: 2016
Type: article
Abstract: The role of the mass media as a resource for making sense of law has seldom been directly examined. Instead, it is simply assumed that the media have a strong impact on people’s perceptions of the law. However, I argue that the media may be unimportant to groups and individuals whose first-hand legal experiences are predominantly negative and confrontational. This is the most important finding to arise from the small case study I discuss in this article. In the lives of the individuals I interviewed, law tends to be strongly present, resulting in the perception that it is predominantly a burden. As a result, media representations of law are often overshadowed by personal experience, which helps to explain why research participants made very few explicit references to the media.
DOI: 10.16997/eslj.147
Author: Lieve Gies
Institution: Keele University
Language: English
Topic: Law in Society and Culture
Subfield: Law
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W2124023928