‘If it’s not good TV, believe me, it’s not for a jury’: Representing the media saturation of law

Abstract

Using Gillian Flynn's 2012 novel Gone Girl as a starting point, this paper explores the nexus between law and media by analysing how three television series about law self-reflexively explore the media saturation of legal practice. CSI, Murder One and Broadchurch each represent what such interrelations with media might mean for legal processes and participants and how these subsequently re-shape the spaces in which law and media are articulated. From this analysis three aspects of media saturation are identified: within the courtroom, outside the courtroom and through the operation of media themselves as jurisprudential texts. The paper concludes with the suggestion that these popular media texts reveal how profoundly the traditionally rigid and contained space of the courtroom can itself be remade into a more liminal, fluid and heterotopic space through media saturation.