When Law Goes Pop

Three important points:

1.Popular culture and law help to police conventional meanings and social practices.

-I agree with this statement. Popular culture demonstrates to us what is socially acceptable at a given point in time. Similarly, laws are there and are even adjusted to fit with a particular culture and their practices. Without both of these, social norms and meanings within a society would not be evident or in any way measurable.

2.TV and other forms of media serve as the measure of reality most people know.

-I agree with this statement. TV and other forms of mass media elicit emotional responses from the viewer, often resulting in them believing what they see or hear. As a result, what the viewer sees or hears from these media sources effects and determines what they consider to be real, even if it isn't true.

3.What we regard as truth is often what we want to believe.

-I agree with this statement. Whether something is true does not determine whether or not we believe it to be true. In the novel, for example, Sherwin uses the example of the movie Jaws. Even though people know that there is a small risk of being attacked by a shark, after this movie many avoided the ocean. If we view a shark attack and then believe we are at risk, our new truth will be that we are at risk.