Until now, we have few research on the relationship between law and television. But in the western countries, they have studied in this field for a long time. This research project aims to delve the characteristics of law as an image in Korean context...
Until now, we have few research on the relationship between law and television. But in the western countries, they have studied in this field for a long time. This research project aims to delve the characteristics of law as an image in Korean context rather than to apply the results of foreign research to our situation. To search the relationship between law and media, we are focusing our research upon everyday life rather than the traditional legal field.
In Korea, legal TV programs are the infortainment program like "Solomon's choice" or reality program like "Real drama: Crime and Punishment". In the case of legal TV program, we can see the viewers' words, "I will be able to face with this kind of affairs" for the bulletin. This can be connected with the trustfulness of the programs. Of course program producers recognize this fact well.
Unlike the programs of other genres, the most of receiver's responses referred to the cases itself in the legal programs that we analyzed. This kind of phenomenon appeared in the analysis of bulletins and in the focus group interview. Although there are a lot of comments about the actor's performance and the quality of programs, the frequency of it is lower than the other dramas or entertainment programs. Especially, the receivers' responses are not only focused upon the legal issues or the interpretation of cases, but also upon how real the representation of dramas is. It means that even if the legal programs include amusement, the receivers expect the degree of similarity with actual world in the legal texts.
It seems that the program producers pursuit amusement and entertainment as important value. They show us this well in the interview and the analysis of texts. Since legal dispute is based upon the bipolar relationsip and there is no neutral choice, there are many cases simplified for the amusement. In the "Solomon's choice", due to it's characteristics of quiz, many legal cases or issues were made a caricature, and in "Real drama: Crime and Punishment", there were many sensational titles or screen. Since "Lawyers" adjusted lawyers' world to the formula of the existing melodrama, it shows the conflict among characters. Through legal TV texts in Korea, legal process and legal image are represented with emotional sympathy and entertainmental elements rather than based upon logical coherence.
The fact that reality programs are increased so fast including legal televesion texts, like "True story: Crime and Punishment" makes us reconsider the concept of "media citizenship". The concept of media citizenship is compared with the polical citizenship that was core concept in the national state since 19th century.
That means a right as a human being to be in a certain culture. While the concept of political citizenship implies clear symbol and a order system, that of cultural citizenship through media encourages individual citizen's voluntary activity and freedom. Once individual story is shared with through media, that is no longer private, but becomes a story or actuality relevant with group identity. If real law is a political power, law represented through media is a kind of symbolic power. Cultural citizenship is deeply interested in this kind of power.