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Indelible shame? News reporting of non-convictions in digital space

Version 3 2024-06-17, 16:53
Version 2 2024-06-03, 10:22
Version 1 2015-12-14, 12:31
conference contribution
posted on 2024-06-17, 16:53 authored by KM Hess, LJ Waller
This paper examines the role of media in publicising the names of people who receive a non-conviction for a minor crime. It positions the news media’s ability to “name and shame” people who appear before the courts as a powerful cultural practice, rather than adopt a widely celebrated Fourth Estate view of the press as a watchdog on the judicial process. The research draws on interviews conducted in two regional centres of Victoria, Australia, with those involved in news coverage of very minor crimes where non-convictions were imposed. Their spoken words reveal a range of tensions linked to reporting non-convictions in the digital age. In the eyes of the law, a non-conviction means that an offender has an opportunity to rehabilitate away from the public gaze. However, the news media ‘s ability to name such offenders online has the potential to impose a lasting “mark of shame” in digital space that can prevent them gaining employment or housing, and damage their social standing and relationships. We live in a media-saturated culture in which the vast majority of people rely on news media for information about judicial proceedings and in turn, the news media constructs public understanding of the law through the way it represents crime and court processes. This paper argues that traditional understanding of the nexus between the judicial system and the Fourth Estate fails to acknowledge the news media’s considerable power outside the officially recognised operation of the open justice relationship, and that this deserves attention in the digital age

History

Pagination

1-10

Location

Queenstown, New Zealand

Start date

2015-07-08

End date

2015-12-10

ISSN

1448-4331

Language

eng

Publication classification

E1 Full written paper - refereed, E Conference publication

Copyright notice

2015, ANZCA

Editor/Contributor(s)

Paterno D, Bourk M, Matheson D

Title of proceedings

Proceedings of the 2015 ANZCA Conference: Rethinking Communication, Space and Identity

Event

ANZCA Conference (2015: Queenstown, New Zealand)

Publisher

ANZCA

Place of publication

Otago, New Zealand

Series

ANZCA Conference Proceedings

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