Respect My Authority! South Park\u27s Expression of Legal Ideology and Contribution to Legal Culture

This Article recognizes that television programs outside of the law genre can engage in legal discourse: to wit, South Park. South Park has been called one of the most profane programs on television, as well as one of the most ideological. Indeed, through sophisticated, no-holds-barred satire, South Park contemplates a number of American culture\u27s most complex and contentious legal issues. This Article systematically analyzes the legal ideologies conveyed by South Park, combining an interpretive ethnographic analysis with quantitative content analyses. Ultimately, these examinations reveal that South Park communicates a libertarian ideology of law. In doing so, however, it does not so much tell us what to think, as it provides us with a framework for how we think. In this manner, South Park informs how we think through legislation, perceive the law\u27s authority (or as Cartman would say, authoritay\u27), and understand its role in our culture

THE "LEGAL EPIDEMIOLOGY" OF THE TEEN SEXTING EPIDEMIC: HOW THE MEDIA INFLUENCED A LEGISLATIVE OUTBREAK

This article considers the media‟s impact on the “legal epidemiology” of the teen sexting epidemic.  Here, “teen sexting epidemic” refers to two things: (1) the belief that sext messaging by teens is rampant and spreading, hence, is an epidemic; and (2) the process by which a piece of information spreads like a virus, came to be understood as a pathogen infecting teens, resulted in a rash of child pornography prosecutions, and erupted into an outbreak of sexting legislation, hence, the epidemiology of the legal issue.  This article argues that the media was both a carrier of this virus, in that it communicated the information and conceptual frameworks that formed the public‟s knowledge base of sexting and its legal implications, and a host environment in which forces interacted and transformed.  To better understand the media‟s role, this article includes an empirical analysis of the past five years of media coverage of teen sexting, and identifying both its temporal and topical trends.  With this quantitative and qualitative base, the article then analyzes the relationship between coverage and the progression of the teen sexting epidemic from a social issue to a legal issue and, ultimately, to an outbreak of “curative” legislation.  In doing so, it focuses on the child pornography prosecutions of teen sexters, the media‟s criticism of that course of action, the reincarnated stories of sext-related suicides, and the nation‟s recent sext-related legislation

The Tales Television Tells: Understanding the Nomos Through Television

This Article argues that to understand the nomos we must study law and litigation as represented in pop culture, specifically, on television. We must acknowledge the power of legal pop culture, and then read, translate, and discern the meanings of its stories. Moreover, because the various pop cultural representations of law exert neither the same function nor force, we must also consider pop legal culture with an eye toward understanding the impact of these lexi-cultural texts. After synopsizing Cover\u27s theory of nomos, this Article defines narrative and its critical role in understanding and institutionalizing law. Recognizing law\u27s rich narrative regime, this Article locates within contemporary culture the dominant legal narratives. It argues that law\u27s primary narratives appear in pop culture, commonly on television\u27s syndicated daytime courtrooms. Indeed, the narrative structure of syndi-court as enhanced by its television production elements make it a powerful narrative force. Relying on cultivation theory adapted for genre-specific effects, this Article reports a group of studies investigating syndi-court\u27s narrative function, that is, its ability to impart factual legal knowledge (legal rules) and normative legal knowledge as expressed as values and heuristics guiding legally-implicated behavior. The results suggest that while syndi-court does not teach specific legal rules, it does impart normative knowledge, such as when and how to litigate, along with the cultural and moral appropriateness of doing so. This Article concludes by extrapolating these results to build a theory explaining the particular ways in which syndi-court contributes to the nomos

Artistic License or Breach of Contract? Creator Liability for Deceptive or “Defective” Documentary Films and Television Programs

With the explosion of the documentary form, documentaries have increasingly integrated the storytelling strategies, production techniques, and performative aspects of scripted television drama. While the news and entertainment industry may regard these as matters of aesthetics, ethics, or artistic expression, a number of recent lawsuits suggest that audiences perceive them as deceptions with legal ramifications. This Article defines and analyzes the term “documentary” from a legal perspective, and identifies the point at which a documentary’s use of fabricated materials, selective editing, producer-controlled situations, and other “documentary deceptions” implicate legal liability. Ultimately, this Article concludes that while a “documentary” does not promise truth, when the term is used in the context of a contract, it does promise that the work is comprised of documentary evidence chronicling actual facts, events, processes, or people. A work that substantially deviates from this standard may amount to breach of contract or breach of warranty. Conversely, if a work is deceptive in some respect, it does not produce legal liability. Instead, that deception either precludes the work from meeting the objective definition of “documentary” or renders the work “defective.