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School of Law

Culture, Law and Media (CLAM)

This research cluster aims to understand the relationship between law and a broad range of cultural expressions, encompassing the media, popular culture and different ways of life. Our law and the media research focuses on the way in which the mass media and new media technologies are regulated, but it also seeks to understand media representations of the law and their significance to the legal process. One aspect of our research is to analyse popular television shows, including reality TV and fantasy genres, from a jurisprudential angle. The place of law in culture is also explored in our law and literature research. Law and religion, focusing on the legal position of religious belief systems, constitutes another theme of our research cluster. Popular conceptions of the law, and the concept of legal consciousness in particular, provide a further focus of our research. Our methodology is broad ranging and includes doctrinal analysis, empirical methods and theoretical analysis. An example is our collaborative special issue on Celebrity Big Brother (2009). We subscribe to an interdisciplinary approach to culture, media and the law. Several of our research themes overlap with the Gender, Sexuality and Law research group.

Members’ profiles and current research project s:

Tony Bradney’s latest book on law and religion is Law and Faith in a Sceptical Age (2009) (Routledge/Glass House Press). His latest article on law and religion is ‘The Inspection of Ultra-Orthodox Jewish Schools: “The Audit Society” and “The Society of Scholars” (2009) 21 Child and Family Law Quarterly 133-154.

is author of Law and the Media: The Future of an Uneasy Relationship (2008) (Routledge-Cavendish). Her current research focuses on media representations of the Human Rights Act which she seeks to situate in the global context of the public debate on security, terrorism and civil liberties.

Rosie Harding is interested in the place of law in everyday life, legal consciousness and the ways that law and regulation are reflected in and shaped by cultural texts. Her book Regulating Sexuality (2010) (Routledge) explores these issues in respect of lesbian and gay families.

Alex Sharpe has particular research interests in the areas of Social and Legal Theory, Legal History and Culture, and Gender, Sexuality and the Law. She is the author of Transgender Jurisprudence: Dysphoric Bodies of Law (2002) (Cavendish) and more recently, Foucault's Monsters and the Challenge of Law (2010) (Routledge).

Mitch Travis’ research considers the relationship between law and science fiction. In particular, he uses science fiction as a method of interrogating differing conceptualisations of personhood and the effects that this may have on law.

Eliza Varney's current research focuses on the protection of disability rights in the regulation of information and communication technologies (ICTs) from the perspective of safeguarding social values such as equality of citizenship and dignity. Her recent publications include: ‘A Hierarchy of Disability Rights? A Comparative Examination of the Regulation of Digital Television in the United States of America and the United Kingdom’ (2009) Northern Ireland Legal Quarterly, 60(4), pp. 421-442.