This article explores the specific capacity of TV courtroom drama to dramatize civic issues and to seduce viewers to an active engagement with such issues. I argue that television series of this genre eyploit the apparent theatricality of their subject matter-trials-to invite their audiences to the deliberation of social or political issues, issues that they negotiate in their courtroom plots. contemporary courtroom dramas amend this issue orientation with a self-reflexive dimension in wich they encourage viewers to also reflect on how the dramatic construction of 'issues' shapes their civic debate. I unfold this argument through a reading of episodes from two very different legal dramas, Boston Legal (2004-2008) and The Good Wife (2009-).
Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:DRESDEN/oai:qucosa:de:qucosa:28633 |
Date | January 2012 |
Creators | Kanzler, Katja |
Contributors | Technische Universität Dresden |
Publisher | Leipziger Universitätsverlag |
Source Sets | Hochschulschriftenserver (HSSS) der SLUB Dresden |
Language | English |
Detected Language | English |
Type | doc-type:bookPart, info:eu-repo/semantics/bookPart, doc-type:Text |
Source | Participating audiences, imagined public spheres / ed. by Sebastian M. Herrmann ..., Leipziger Universitätsverl., 2012, S. 64-90 |
Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
Page generated in 0.0013 seconds