There are multiple aspects of electronically-mediated communication that influence and have strong implications for legal practice. This volume focuses on three major aspects of mediated communication through social media. Part I examines social media and the legal community. It explores how this has influenced professional legal discourse and practice, contributing to the popularity of internet-based legal research, counselling and assistance through online services offering explanations of law, preparing documents, providing evidence, and even encouraging electronically mediated alternative dispute resolution. Part II looks at the use of social media for client empowerment. It examines how it has taken legal practice from a formal and distinct business to one that is publicly informative and accessible. Part III discusses the way forward, exploring the opportunities and challenges. Based on cases from legal practice in diverse jurisdictions, the book highlights key issues as well as implications for legal practitioners on the one hand, and clients on the other.
The book will be a valuable reference for international scholars in law and other socio-legal studies, discourse analysis, and practitioners in legal and alternative dispute resolution contexts.
Introduction;
VIJAY K. BHATIA AND GIROLAMO TESSUTO;
SECTION 1: SOCIAL MEDIA AND THE LEGAL COMMUNITY;
- Environmental justice or ‘government overreach’: the rhetorical landscape of the Gibson guitar factory raids;
ROY CARPENTER; - Trial by (social) media: Anglo-Saxon and Italian practises in the digital age;
DOUGLAS PONTON AND MARCO CANEPA; - Legally dead, illegally frozen? The legal aspects of cryonics as discursively constructed online by providers and the media;
KIM GREGO; - The fuzzy line between media and judicial discourse: insights from the Pinto-López Madrid Case;
GIANLUCA PONTRANDOLFO; - Ideological positioning in Amnesty International human rights web-based documents;
GERALD DELAHUNTY; - Argumentation and video evidence in a legal context: an interdisciplinary case study from Brazilian military justice;
ANDRE LAZARO, VICENTE RICCIO and AMITZA TORRES VIEIRA; - The discursive construction of Hong Kong’s Civic Square in the media: contesting social and legal perspectives;
ADITI BHATIA; - Finding a way forward: a discourse analysis of the online popularisation of restorative justice in the United Kingdom;
ANTONELLA NAPOLITANO; - Helping Aussie women online: a discourse analysis of the Australian e-safety commissioner website;
CARMINA MEOLA; - Discursive illusions and manipulations in legal blogs on medically assisted procreation: Parrillo v. Italy Case;
JEKATERINA NIKITINA; - Jag 2.0: legal advice and dissemination in online military lawyer forums;
ROXANNE BARBARA DOERR; - The web-mediated construction of interdiscursive truth(s) about the MMR vaccine: a defamation case;
ANNA FRANCA PLASTINA and ROSITA BELINDA MAGLIE; - The toxic proliferation of lies and fake news in the world of social media: is it time for the law to "unfriend" Facebook?;
JANET AINSWORTH; - ‘Fake news’ as interdiscursive illusion: a challenge to law, social media, and free speech;
VIJAY K BHATIA; - Information and communication technology in alternative dispute resolution: is it facilitative or disruptive?;
RAJESH SHARMA;
SECTION 2: SOCIAL MEDIA FOR CLIENT EMPOWERMENT;
SECTION 3: CHALLENGES AND WAY FORWARD;
Biography
Vijay K Bhatia retired as Professor from the City University of Hong Kong and is now a Visiting Professor at the Hellenic American University in Athens, and Adjunct Professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Girolamo Tessuto is Professor of English Language, Linguistics and Translation, Department of Law, University of Campania ‘Luigi Vanvitelli’, Caserta, Italy.
