Page 119 - Courting the Media Contemporary Perspectives on Media and Law

110 Per-Anders Forstorp

processes should only take place in the legitimate institutions. Such claims
often proceed to specify the places, institutions and contexts which are
legitimate and non-legitimate for such purposes. The media occupies perhaps
one of the most privileged positions as the illicit context for the enactment of
legitimate legal processes. As such, the media is positioned as the counterpart
or the unwanted alternative to legitimate legal processes, codified, for
instance, in the emphasis on procedures such as the sequestering of a jury in
different legal cultures. Another example is that media behavior and
intervention in itself can be brought into the court as a complicating factor in a
legal process, where, for instance, it can be shown that the trial is in some way
irregularly affected by the media representations.
The expression ―your words against mine‖ is used by the journalists in
Excerpts 1-4 and they do this in advance of any legal decision. By doing this
they accomplish a number of things. First, they express their own stance as a
stance of neutrality vis-à-vis legal power. Second, they consolidate the conflict
by voicing the different opinions related to the event. Third, they declare a
communicative state of exception because by representing an event through
the expression ―your words against mine‖ it is not possible to identify a winner
or truth teller. The actors in the media are using a state of delay or expectancy
(on the legal opinion) in order to classify an event in terms of ―your words
against mine‖. What is accomplished by using this expression is a
postponement or delaying of the decision on who is right and who is wrong.
Traditionally and constitutionally, it is not the duty, as we have seen, of the
media to pass any verdicts or opinions in legal matters. Their obligation and
responsibility are to objectively report on a series of events that may include
contested accounts and that may lead to legal action, but without revealing
their own opinions. Given that the role of the media is not to express opinions
before legal action have been brought to closure, it is still very common – if
not inevitable - that this is done. Many studies show that reporting only can be
done from taking a perspective which includes assumptions, values and norms
[Schudson 1995).
The media refracts rather than reflects our impression of reality and thus
affects the opinions and world views of the public. We can even say that
people actively orient themselves to the media in order to access perspectives
on the state of things and events. Part of this orientation consists in the
expectation that the media plays an important role in the expression and
production of social and cultural norms. Today, we witness, for instance, a
collegiality between politicians and journalists, rather than a professional
animosity based on their adversarial positions. In opinion polls it is repeatedly