Legal Discourse: Context, Media and Social Power - CRILL 5th International Conference

The influence of Web-based technologies and social media has entered the mainstream and become so pervasive in human communication today that it is difficult to imagine any aspect of academic or professional life that has not been invaded by recent developments in new media. Being a very conservative discipline within its rationalistic terms of discourses and genres, law has always been relatively slow to accept any change in its traditions, processes, practices and, of course, mindset. However, even in law, particularly in the last few years, there has been an enthusiastic acceptance of the role of new media sites and services in the way law enforcement operates in investigative activities, introducing substantial changes to communication between organizations, institutions, communities and individuals and developing comprehensive integration strategies to improve access to justice. This growing influence of media usage is also making its way into novel forms of legal discourse, and also, perhaps more critically, into specific issues arising from the use of legal discourse in its various traditional and newly-emerging (social) media contexts, and brings to the fore the social power these novel resources are now framing for problem-based inquiries in law. Alongside this, potential is mounting for the role of (social-)media as an instrument of interdiscursive and interdisciplinary procedure, exploitation, and management of public and private discursive space and practice and is already visible in current socio-legal media contexts. Today, Internet and social media platforms dedicated to community-based input, interaction, content-sharing and collaboration are thus becoming one of the most prevalent means of communication in a variety of academic, professional and organizational contexts, highlighting greater opportunities for social media knowledge and development in an expanding global reality and modern society.