ABSTRACT
I have argued in previous chapters that concerns about media influence are important in unravelling the uncomfortable relationship between law and the media but I have also outlined the shortcomings of a simple media effects model. This led me to explore various methods of conceptualising audiences and the meaning-making processes at work in everyday life, with both reality television and legal self-help media offering specific examples of the growing prominence of the active audience. In this chapter, I aim to demonstrate that tensions between media and the legal system do not just find an expression in concerns about media effects but also have an institutional basis in the media’s ‘self-chosen’ (McQuail 1992: 3) role as guardians of the common good who critically and objectively monitor public life, giving the media a broad mandate for exposing wrongs and problems in the legal system. Viewed from this perspective, the uneasy relationship between law and media is not so much a problem as a healthy sign of a vibrant democracy which attracts measured yet significant legal protection, most crucially in the shape of press freedom. However, this quintessentially liberal doctrine has come under attack on several fronts. The criticism ranges from suspicions that the media are systematically biased in favour of dominant forces in society and are more interested in entertaining audiences than in empowering citizens with balanced and factual reporting, to deep misgivings about the relevance of the watchdog model in a mass democracy. Much of the criticism portrays the media’s democratic aspirations as being constantly thwarted because of their own greed, their hunger for power and their inclination to pander to the lowest common denominator.
