Audience studies

[rivkat]

So, I've got a colleague writing about images of lawyers in popular culture, only she wants to get beyond "images of" and into how various groups perceive lawyers in TV shows/movies. Is anyone aware of any work on this? Reception studies involving Ally McBeal or LA Law? Even if there's only a mention of reaction to a legal storyline in a larger study of a non-legal show or movie, that would be a huge addition to the project -- because right now she's got theory and no practice. No pun intended.

Also, if anyone knew of a good place to go for a recent reception studies bibliography, that would be great.

Comments

[gianna24.livejournal.com]

These articles might be helpful;

http://www.iuinfo.indiana.edu/homepages/0124/0124text/pop.htm

http://www.usfca.edu/pj/libel_trach.htm,

and this one (UCLA law review article) will almost certainly be useful,

http://tarlton.law.utexas.edu/lpop/etext/ucla/rosenberg48.htm.

[rivkat.livejournal.com]

Thanks -- I'm really hoping to point her in the direction of nonlawyers' reactions, because it's one thing for lawyers to say "the images of law in popular culture convey the message that X" and another to have nonlawyers say "I think law is X," or "I think the story in LA Law shows X." The UCLA Law Review piece looks interesting.

[ex-ajhalluk585.livejournal.com]

I've no sensible ideas, except that if she manages to write the entire paper and refrain from using the line "First thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers" or variations on the same I will buy her a bottle of champagne.

Also that she needs to study Rumpole, because some characters there are understood int he English legal community to be so close to original people almost to make it a roman a clef - for example, that Ken Cracknell in Rumpole's Return is a recognisable (and still practising) member fo the IP bar.

[rivkat.livejournal.com]

Oh, she hasn't used that line. Along with "a custom honored more in the breach," it's got to be one of the top misinterpreted Shakespeare lines.

I had no idea about Rumpole -- the thing is, she's got plenty in there about what she thinks pop culture teaches nonlawyers about law; I'm trying to prod her to connect that up with her more theoretical portions of the paper by examining what nonlawyers think pop culture has taught them about law.

[cathexys.livejournal.com]

reception studies in respect to what discipline? audience studies in regard to fan studies or more reception aesthetics as in reader response or??? i'm about to get back in the latter and have a few references on the former (though you probably have all of them...)

[rivkat.livejournal.com]

Frankly, anything would be a useful addition to what she's got, which is basically what she thinks the texts mean. I want empirical stuff, qualitative or quantitative, about viewer reaction to legal shows/movies or legal storylines. I haven't read the old stuff on Dallas, but it's even possible there's something there.

[cathexys.livejournal.com]

i'll get you sth with the more classic approaches and will also ask a couple of folks i know who work on law-related shows. for now, here (http://www.livejournal.com/users/just_temporary/1549.html)'s the fanstuff bib...not that heavy on reception (e.g., watching dallas isn't even there...though it should be)

give me a few days, and i'll do better (i want to really get that down for myself!)

[rivkat.livejournal.com]

That would be great -- the fan bibliography looks really interesting, though I'd like to give her some studies of "we just watch and chat about it over the water cooler" types, not just heavily involved fans. Part of the problem is that the work I want her to use may not really exist, and she's not going to do it. I suggested she could do some primary research in the TWOP forums, looking for discussions of the legal aspects of various shows they recap.

[teenygozer.livejournal.com]

I've no sensible ideas, except that if she manages to write the entire paper and refrain from using the line "First thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers" or variations on the same I will buy her a bottle of champagne.

Actually, I want her to use the above Shakespearian phrase, but continue with the rest of the quote. Nobody ever finished the damned sentence when they quote it, which is that the world comes crumbling down when you kill all the lawyers. In other words, as pleasurable as bumping off the lawyers might be, they are an absolutely necessary evil! ;)

I'm pretty sure there's a Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel book of essays out there that has a piece about the consequences of Angel allowing the Wolfram & Hart lawyers to die at the hands of Dru & Darla. I'll try to find out what book it's in.

[rivkat.livejournal.com]

Since her audience will be almost all lawyers, they're probably more likely than average to know how the quote ends, thank goodness. I'd just like her to be able to look at some evidence of what nonlawyers think about popular representations of law.

[teenygozer.livejournal.com]

According to my friend the BtVS scholar (she's published papers on the show) you should direct your friend to the Slayage Online Journal (http://www.slayage.tv/) for essays about Wolfram & Hart. Hope she finds something useful!

[rivkat.livejournal.com]

Thanks! It looks as if the Wolfram & Hart paper isn't available online, but I'll mention it to her.

[ladyagnew.livejournal.com]

I don't know how much this will help but I've been reading Fielding's Joseph Andrews (so, not pop culture) for a class and there are some choice passages, my favorite is this, an authorial editorial:

I describe not Men, but Manners; not an Individual, but a Species. Perhaps it will be answered, Are not the Characters then taken from Life? To which I answer in the Affirmative; nay, I believe I might aver, that I have writ little more than I have seen. The Lawyer is not only alive, but hath been so these 5000 Years, and I hope G— will indulge his Life as many yet to come. He hath not indeed confined himself to one Profession, one Religion, or one Country; but when the first mean selfish Creature appeared on the human Stage, who made Self the Centre of the whole Creation; would give himself no Pain, incur no Danger, advance no Money to assist, or preserve his Fellow-Creatures; then was our Lawyer born; and whilst such a Person as I have described, exists on Earth, so long shall he remain upon it. It is therefore doing him little Honour, to imagine he endeavours to mimick some little obscure Fellow, because he happens to resemble him in one particular Feature, or perhaps in his Profession; whereas his Appearance in the World is calculated for much more general and noble Purposes, than to expose one pitiful Wretch, to the small Circle of his Acquaintance; but to hold the Glass to thousands in their Closets, that they may contemplate their Deformity, and endeavour to reduce it, and thus by suffering private Mortification may avoid public Shame. This places the Boundary between, and distinguishes the Satirist from the Libeller; for the former privately corrects the Fault for the Benefit of the Person, like a Parent; the latter publickly exposes the Person himself, as an Example to others, like an Executioner.