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ALL LAW’S A STAGE:

ANALYZING THE IMPACTS OF SYNDI-COURT NARRATIVE ON VIEWERS

Despite the prevalence of stories of law on television, legal scholars have been slow to acknowledge pop-culture as worthy of academic study.[1] Yet, as society has shifted to visual literacy[2] and cinematic representations of law have proliferated,[3] the study of law’s representation in pop culture has obtained cachet.[4] Indeed, legal scholars have finally begun to understand what media scholars long have known: that television imagery can influence the assumptions, attitudes, and behaviors of the public.[5]

Nonetheless, although the study of law’s interpenetration of popular culture has emerged as a valid area of inquiry, this field is “only beginning to generate the kind of scholarly work needed to construct an interdisciplinary research tradition.”[6] We understand little about how viewers use specific story types to make sense of the world[7] or any causal link between media representations of law and the public’s attitudes and behaviors.[8]

Consequently, this paper explores the relationship between pop culture’s stories of law and public opinions about law, legal claiming, and catharsis. Specifically, it examines the narratives of syndi-court – syndicated television courtrooms such as Judge Judy and The People’s Court – as lexi-cultural texts. In doing so, this paper goes beyond theoretical explication of narrative in pop culture law to establishing an empirical base: It reports a study of 546 prospective jurors and jury eligible adults regarding syndi-court viewing, opinions about legal claiming and process. The data collected supports a link between syndi-court’s text and: (1) beliefs about and decision-making regarding the law; (2) norms favoring litigation; (3) its function as a cathartic venue. Hence, viewers join the on-screen litigants in obtaining justice or experiencing catharsis.

Pop Culture

Although debate about the definition of pop culture could fill volumes,[9] this paper employs the most typical definition of pop culture. Hence, pop culture is that which is commercially produced for the consumption of ordinary people,[10] as distinguished from high culture, the weightier or aesthetically profound works of the intellectual elite.[11] In other words, whereas art is created for the sake of art, pop culture is produced for the sake of entertainment.

Pop culture – which includes television, movies, and popular music – pervades modern society:[12] It is something to which we are all exposed and by which we are all influenced.[13] Pop culture includes the stories that “we live in and live out”[14] thus supplying the materials from which we construct our realities. Importantly, pop culture not only reflects what its producers think that people do and believe but also impacts what its consumers do and believe.[15]

A subset of pop culture is legal pop culture. [16] Whereas legal culture comprises the public’s attitudes and expectation regarding the law,[17] popular legal culture encompasses the commercially produced and disseminated stories of law as well as lay understandings of law. It refers to the images of law appearing in the pop cultural texts such as television shows, movies, and songs, along with the attitudes held by lay people toward law, courts, and justice.[18]

Pop culture has much to tell us about law and justice in America society.[19] Legal depictions in pop culture disseminate beliefs about the uses of litigation, invite viewers to experience vicariously the practice of law, and to judge the actions of litigants and the bench. As these stories take root in our psyches, they help construct our perceptions of law and American justice.[20] Accordingly, legal pop culture can influence respect for, knowledge of, and propensity to turn to the law for the resolution of disputes.[21]

Impact of Television Law

The relevance of pop culture on the legal system is growing.[22] Most individuals do not read appellate opinions and law journal articles[23] or have one-on-one experiences with the law.[24] Instead, they acquire their understandings of law from the stories that circulate in pop culture and are broadcast by the media.[25] Legal storytelling has changed,[26] however, adapting to contemporary mass (visual) media.[27] We live in a media-saturated culture where 98% of Americans have at least one television set.[28] Television is no longer merely an industry, but a cultural institution.[29]

Consequently, television is our principal source of stories about law.[30] Millions see TV’s images of law and justice daily.[31] Long before one becomes a litigant or is empanelled as a juror, Perry Mason has shown her that the true culprit always confesses at trial, C.S.I. has proven that science will ascertain with certainty the identity of the killer, and Law & Order has demonstrated that prosecutors never act with less than certainty of guilt. Indeed, some legal scholars have argued that the line between law and pop culture has vanished.[32]

Even the bench and Bar have acknowledged the impact of televised depictions of law. For example, Justice Harlan stated that “television is capable of performing an educational function by acquainting the public with the judicial process in action,”[33] and the American Bar Association concluded “that the media can and does impact some people’s knowledge” about law.[34] This influence is enhanced where individuals have little personal experience on which to draw[35] and operates regardless of whether the law on TV is fictitious or out of sync with reality.[36]

Syndi-court: Our Legal Storyteller

Today, law on the television screen is dominated by syndi-court. Syndicated television courtrooms like Judge Judy and The People’s Court rule the dial hosting up to 7.2 million viewers daily. As a result, syndi-courts reach more Americans than any other type of legal information.[37] Though individuals within the legal profession may disregard these as aberrational or embarrassing, for many citizens they are a key source of information about judges and the law.

Moreover, syndi-court possesses several factors that make it unique among television representations of law, and may enhance its potential impact. First, unlike periodic reporting of noteworthy trial and appellate decisions, syndi-court is omnipresent. We see not one show, but an entire genre, and each one is broadcast 5 days per week. Second, syndi-courts reflect a homogenous format with a unified body of information, and, hence, a cumulative effect. Third, as evidenced Nielsen ratings, syndi-court has a regular, substantial audience. Fourth, syndi-courts are neither dramas nor re-enactments, but “real cases” with “real people.” They are congruent with reality. Finally, as addressed below, syndi-court’s narrative and theatrical staging enhance their communicative ability.

Narrative Analysis

A popular framework for analyzing television programs conceptualizes a program as a text, and then analyzes its narrative.[38] Text is an object considered as a set of signs that can be analyzed and interpreted.[39] Thus, television is a cultural text whose signs are the pictures and stories broadcast on its screen.[40] Investigating the narratives within TV elucidates the relationship between its stories and our behaviors and cultural values.[41]

A narrative is an ordered set of images (and sounds) that make up a story, or the process of telling a story.[42] Most narratives follow a linear chain of events[43] with a beginning, middle, and end.[44] This is typically reflected as a disturbance, then a crisis, and resolution.[45]

Narrative, however, is not just the method of storytelling. It also reflects the way that we make sense of the story and imbue it with moral values.[46] For instance, where narrative involves ordinary life configured into plot, hence, a story, that story is a metaphor to represent our existence.[47] Viewers then receive the story, ruminate on it, and interpret it.[48] Ultimately, the cumulative effect of the underlying narratives can impact beliefs and attitudes,[49] and structure our reality.[50]

Of course, this requires not only determining how the narratives are constructed and what they say, but also discerning how they are received.[51] Pop culture texts can be read or understood in many different ways,[52] and syndi-court is no different. Therefore, it is also critical to narrative theory to ascertain how viewers actively produce these meanings[53] or at least what those resulting meanings.

By acknowledging certain works within pop culture, i.e., TV, as legal texts,[54] we can investigate their narratives to elucidate their impact on the way that we understand law and its role in society.[55] Within this text, it is, therefore, important to analyze the narrative of syndi-court.[56]

Law’s Narrative

Law has long been a prolific narrative regime.[57] It is a theater of conflict,[58] and its courtroom is a theater of narrative construction.[59] Rosenberg aptly described “the theater of the courtroom [a]s a theater within a theater.”[60] Moreover, the adversarial process of American law that guides litigant and witness exposition is, itself, a ready-made narrative.[61]

Law’s text articulates an understanding of conflict.[62] Its structure follows that of drama, i.e., one of cause, effect, belief, and resolution. [63] Additionally, as in a fable, law follows a protagonist vs. antagonist structure that drives not only the storytelling but also the jurisprudence.[64] Each litigant narrates his or her account of the event intending to resolve the problem set in motion at the start. These stories as well as the act of telling and hearing them dramatize law and morality: Through these stories, we blame or exonerate,[65] condemn or shame,[66] and learn whether litigious action is appropriate.[67]

Mise-en-Scene of Syndi-court

What makes a legal storyteller effective is what makes any storyteller effective. Fundamentally, it must be perceived to be authentic.[68] Its narrative must convey a sense of truth and reality[69] so that we have a real emotional response to it and can either better apply it to our own lives or test it against our own experiences. [70]

Additionally, visual and aural cues can enhance the effectiveness of a story.[71] For instance, seeing the reactions, facial expressions and gestures,[72] and hearing the tone of the characters clarifies and underscores the narrative experience. These cues serve elaborate the message and can even influence attitudinal response. [73]

Where stories are broadcast on television, textual or narrative analysis requires considering editing techniques, visual components, camera angles,[74] and dialogue patterns.[75] Editing and camera angles are not neutral to the narrative.[76] Rather, they help tell the story. Indeed, editing decisions affect not only the aesthetics of television, but how the audience interprets the events.[77]

Syndi-court exhibits a number of conventions that impact its function as a narrative and the impact of that narrative. First, the syndi-court is bathed in realism. Although the syndi-courts vary somewhat in their look, they are more similar than different. A particularly strong, unifying feature is the mise-en-scene of the courtroom setting. Each syndi-court set resembles our vision of a courtroom.[78] There are flags near or behind the judges, bailiffs standing to the left of the judge,[79] benches, lecterns, and pillars. The judges are costumed in robes and wield gavels, and bailiffs don court officer attire. Litigants must stand with a neutral space between them and the judge, and, should a litigants move from their appointed mark, the bailiff will approach. Most syndi-courts also begin with montages of the respective judges and a depiction of a courthouse or government building.

Unlike fictional legal narrative, which has been criticized as unrealistic, we are constantly reminded that syndi-court hosts “real people, real cases.” This correspondence to actual events heightens the potential for influence.[80] Furthermore, litigants are not well-lit with airbrushed skin and perfect grammar, but speak like, look like, and dress like anyone you could see in a mall. This enhances the ability of the audience to identify with these individuals and their stories.[81]

Second, syndi-court’s camera shots are also narratively suggestive. Generally, the judges are shot at a low angle, upwardly-tilted.[82] Not only is this flattering to the judge’s appearance,[83] but it also raises the judge – both literally and figuratively –above the litigants. This both replicates and certifies the authority of judge.[84] Litigants, by contrast, are generally shot in medium close-ups, bordering on portrait shot, and at either high angle or a normal eye level angle.

There are also master shots of the audience, who sits behind the litigants. On Judge Judy, this is done with normal eye level angles and the focus is limited so that the audience members can be seen but are out of focus slightly to diminish individual recognizability. On the remaining syndi-court’s, the camera uses the same eye level shot, but uses deep-focus photography to keep the audience in focus. Deep-focus is somewhat unexpected. Normally, scenes are shot in shallow-focus, designating either the foreground or background as relevant.[85] This technique in syndi-court suggests that the audience reaction is clearly part of the story being told.[86]

Third, syndi-courts exhibit reaction shots. Reaction shots are one of the most commonly used devices to capture and manipulate non-verbal cues on television.[87] Moreover, when nonverbal behavior such as gestures and facial expressions are communicated through television, they can take on added significance due to the editing.[88] It is the editing that connects the reaction to the thing to be reacted against.

On syndi-court, the least common reaction shots are of the litigants, though the commonality of the shot differs by show. For instance, litigant reaction shots are rare on Judge Judy, but more common on Judge Joe Brown, and Judge Mathis.

More common are reaction shots of the audience: Periodically we see a master shot camera truck left or right to include more of the audience, and, hence, their reaction. Sometimes, we hear the audience’s laughter or applause. These reactions to the stories told, the litigant behavior, and, untimely the judgments rendered can shape viewer perceptions of the litigant and the legal or moral outcome of the litigation. [89] Additionally, as noted above, the deep-focus photography of the audience helps viewers to better see these reactions.