When Law Goes Pop Main Points

1. Our society and our perceptions of the world around us are affected to a great degree by media...."And where do they come from? For most people the source is not difficult to ascertain. It is the visual mass media: film, video, television, and to an increasing degree computerized imaging. This vast electronic archive provides us with the knowledge and interpretation skills we need to make sense of ordinary reality."

I agree with this point; I spend at least an hour each day, if not more on the internet. I get a lot of exposure to media whether that be through television, movies, facebook, or even twitter. Media affects my life to a large degree, and I would say that this is true of most the rest of our society.

2. The media also affects the laws of our society; both are very powerful forces in our society, and they both influence each other.

I also agree with this idea; just like one of the first days of class when we were talking about if media affects law and if law affects media. We applied this to law and order and decided that yes, this was true. Law affects media through this show, obviously, because it provides the foundation for the storyline. Also, the television show may affect real law, because the people that watch it may get skewed views of the real legal system and think that it functions the same way that it does on tv (maybe jury members) Law and order aside, I do think that both of these things, law and media, play a large role in our society, and because of this, they also do affect each other to a degree. Since the emersion of mass media, cases also get more coverage; we hear about more legal issues in more parts of the world than we would have in the past.

3. Pop culture and law are similar in some aspects..."Simply stated, popular culture, like law, helps to police conventional meetings and social practices."

I do think that because these two things are so powerful in our society, they do share some similarities. On the one hand, law is what our government uses as a standard of action and punishment. On the other hand, media shows us what is currently popular in society, and it in a way could be taken as showing us how to act or dress.