Page 125 - Courting the Media Contemporary Perspectives on Media and Law

116 Per-Anders Forstorp

reach a communicative state of exception when the condition is that only
subjective reports constitute the available evidence.
By discussing how something can be won by posing oneself as a party in a
―your words against mine‖ situation, I do not mean to indicate that the woman
at Crazy Horse was the guilty one who used this strategy in order to pass as a
credible and trustworthy person in comparison with the rapist. I want to show
that she used this strategy as a way of defending herself against the decision by
the court. She is not doing it in order to accomplish neutrality in the sense of
the media, but in order to maintain the issue as unsettled and hence the verdict
as illegitimate. She uses the previous meaning of the expression (equal weight
before the trial begins) in order to consolidate her own position and reputation
when the verdict has fallen. This is the same thing as saying that the verdict
lacks validity. The decision has led to her being publicly humiliated, and she
finds herself forced to resign from public office. What she does not resign
from, however, is her role as one of the contested parties in the (according to
her) still unsettled dispute between her and the doorkeeper. She feels
―miserable‖ because when a ―your words against mine‖ situation is at hand,
the only thing that can weigh the guilt in any direction is the belief in the
external witnesses or the belief in character and trustworthiness. She feels that
she has lost on all counts.
We have to recall that publishing of a public letter at the privileged media
spot in Dagens Nyheter is not an available option for everyone. The ordinary
person who has suffered from a similar treatment by the law cannot generally
address the public in this way. The display of misery in the eye of the public is
an option only for the so called ―accessed voices‖ [Hartley, p. 109], but also
for those who are already in power or for those who carry celebrity status.

THIRD CONTEXT OF USE:
THEORIZING “YOUR WORDS AGAINST MINE”

In order to understand the expression ―your words against mine‖ and the
popular legal situations in which they occur, we need to explore interpretations
other than those that prevail in the legal realm. This is where we have turned to
media studies, communication theory as well as discourse theory and the law,
as analytical resources to understand the everyday and popular meanings
attached to the expression. By using this expression, the result of the contest
can be interpreted as unsettled (as a draw) because nobody can nor should