ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on media literacy as a particular kind of cultural expertise, requiring conscious study and self-aware application in a legal environment. The media are nowadays so powerful that organisations and individuals cannot simply choose to ignore them. The courts and the administration of justice are not exempt from the influence of mediatisation processes. This calls for a special skill set: cultural expertise in media and communication. Mediatisation (medialisation) is an overarching process wherein communication media, instead of being solely makers and disseminators of information and entertainment, emerge as independent institutions with goals and logic of their own. The existence of powerful and ever-present media with their own logic and objectives can both give rise to many legal issues and contribute to the solution of other ones. It can also affect the outcome of seemingly unrelated cases.
