Ethnicity, Gender, and Diversity: Law and Justice on TV

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Description

Television and streamed series that viewers watch on their TVs, computers, phones, and tablets are a crucial part of popular culture They have an influence on viewers and on law. People acquire values, behaviors, and stereotypes, both positive and negative, from television shows, which are relevant to peoples acquisition of beliefs and to the development of law.. In this book, readers will find the first transnational, empirical look at ethnicity, gender, and diversity on legally-themed TV shows. Scholars determine the three most watched legally-themed shows in Brazil, Britain, Canada, Germany, Greece, Poland, Switzerland and the United States and then examine gender, age, ability, ethnicity, race, class, sexual orientation and nationality in those shows and countries. As such, this book provides an important link between law, TV, and what is going on in real life.

Reviews

This is an unusually important book. Because of its focus on diversity and its comparative/cross cultural perspective, it makes a distinguished contribution to scholarship on law and popular culture. I know of no other book like it. -- Austin Sarat, Amherst College
This path-breaking international study provides essential and timely insights into thecomplex interpenetration of law and popular culture. In an era when visual storytelling is rapidly becoming the dominant mode of communication worldwide, jurists and citizens ignore these findings at their peril. -- Richard Sherwin, New York Law School and author of A Cultural History of Law in the Modern Age
The field of law and popular culture is long on theory but short on empirical work. Ethnicity, Gender and Diversity: Law and Justice on TV is a rare and welcome empirical contribution. Authors and editors Jennifer Schulz and Peter Robson contribute studies of the leading television shows in eight countries during November 2017. This snapshot of a moment in time of the representation of women, ethnic minorities, and LGBT characters will be valuable to researchers who study the impact of pop culture on those who consume it. -- Michael Asimow, Stanford Law School

Author Bio

Peter Robson is solicitor and judge in the Courts and Tribunals service dealing with disability issues and is professor of social welfare law at the University of Strathclyde. Jennifer L. Schulz is associate professor at the Faculty of Law, University of Manitoba, and fellow of the Winkler Institute for Dispute Resolution at Osgoode Hall Law School, Toronto.