The Electronic Media and the Transformation of Law

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0195045904 ISBN 13: 9780195045901

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 1989

Highly publicized legal cases, such as those involving libel verdicts, obscenity prosecutions, the First Amendment, and other areas of media law have focused attention on only one part of the media's impact on law. This study, the first to explore the broad influence of computers and television on the future of the legal process, explains the critical role of information and argues that the influence of the new modes of communication can be seen in changes occurring in many areas of the law. These areas include the goals and purposes of law, the doctrines and rules of law, the processes law uses to settle disputes and shape behavior, the legal profession, and the values and concepts that underlie our system of law.

About the Author:

M. Ethan Katsh is at University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Review:

"A seminal book."--ABA Journal

"Katsh maintains that new forms of electronic communication, in their ability to foster more and faster links among people, will be supportive both of less abstraction in legal relations and of greater group consciousness in the formulation of our legal ideals....Mr. Katsh suggests that as our legal categories and traditions become archaic, law will change into an enterprise more responsive to real needs, in which communication is inevitably more nuanced, more frequent, less literal (even less literate) and more like a conversation....This is an absorbing book, evocative and optimistic."--The New York Times Book Review

"In this lucid, well-documented commentary, he persuasively argues that the telecommunications media are effecting fundamental changes in legal doctrine concerning individual expression and, more specifically, the creation, storage, processing, and dissemination of information....A first-class book, essential for law and journalism collections."--Library Journal

"An unusually appealing combination of lively writing and learned thought that will attract considerable attention across several fields. This is a first rate book."--Aviam Soife, Boston University

"A significant contribution to the field but, more importantly, to culture generally. His approach is a sound one. In dealing with law, Katsh does not fragment the legal system into discrete doctrines but rather addresses the structural or underlying elements which the new technology is transforming."--Saul Touster, Brandeis University