Page 175 - Courting the Media Contemporary Perspectives on Media and Law

166 Shea Esterling

In areas of emerging international law, the maintenance of boundaries
between formal and informal sources can result in never reaching a solution to
outstanding issues, or as Audi describes it: ― it restrains the bounds of
acceptable discourse and limits the universe of potential solutions to cultural
property disputes—or at least muddies the water enough to prevent clear-cut
solutions from emerging‖ [Audi, p. 145]. Analysis of popular culture reveals
that the real challenge that lies ahead for this area of legal research involves
exploring how to escape the stifling replication of legal arguments in order to
make progress towards reaching a solution. ―Criticism is initially reactive and
destructive, rather than constructive. But our mistaken belief that our current
ways of doing things are somehow natural or necessary hinders us from
envisioning radical alternatives to what exists…. By systematically and
constantly criticizing the rationalizations of traditional legal reasoning, we can
demonstrate, again and again, that a wider range of alternatives is available to
us‖ [Singer, pp. 58-9].

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