About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

7 King's Student L. Rev. 1 (2016)

handle is hein.journals/kinstul7 and id is 1 raw text is: King's Student Law Review OPEN JUSTICE 2.0: TECHNOLOGY, TRUST AND CITIZEN JOURNALISM IN THE CONTEMPORARY COURTROOM Jumani Robbins Digital technology and new media have revolutionised the way in which we consume and disseminate information. In light of this, judicial authorities in various jurisdictions have adopted rules concerning the use of such technology in the reporting of legal proceedings from the courtroom. Many of these rules draw a distinction between members of 'the public' and members of 'the media'. Using the rules in England and Wales as its point of origin, this paper seeks to demonstrate the inadequacy of such an approach to courtroom reporting regulation. It does so in three sections. In the first section, the current position in England and Wales is untangled and its practical viability assessed; in the second section, traditional open justice principles are applied in order to determine the conceptual desirability of such an approach; and in the final section, a 'third way 'for the regulation of such technology in the courtroom is tentatively suggested by reference to the United States. It is concluded that reform is required in order to make the most of all that digital technology, new media and citizen journalism has to offer to open justice and contemporary courtroom newsgathering. INTRODUCTION We are living in the age of user-generated content. This is not news: almost a decade ago in 2006, Time magazine awarded its Person of the Year accolade to 'You in recognition of the millions of people who contribute words, images and audio to so-called Web 2.0.2 In the years since, such digital phenomena as blogs, wikis and discussion forums have continued to revolutionise the way in which we consume and disseminate information,3 with facts and opinions now quicker to access and easier to transmit. Naturally, this paradigm shift has not gone unnoticed in the realms of newsgathering where the very essence of what constitutes reportage has had to be reconceptualised.4 While the response of the courts in England and Wales to new methods of information communication has fostered considerable academic debate, the bulk of this scholarship focuses 1 Lev Grossman, 'You - Yes, You - are TIME's Person of the Year' (TIME, 2006) <http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1570810,00.html> accessed 30 November 2015 2 Web 2.0 is the phrase used by some commentators to describe 'a more socially connected web in which people can contribute as much as they can consume'. See Paul Anderson, 'What is Web 2.0? Ideas, technologies and implications for education' (JISC Technology and Standards Watch, 2007) <http://www.webarchive.org.uk/wayback/archive/20140615231729/http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/tec hwatch/tsw070lb.pdf> accessed 30 November 2015. 3 Eytan Bakshy, Itamar Rosenn, Cameron Marlow and Lada Adamic, 'The Role of Social Networks in Information Diffusion' (WWW '12, 2012) <http://arxiv.org/pdf/1201.4145.pdf> accessed 30 November 2015 4 Gareth Locksley, The Media and Development: What's the Story? (World Bank Publications, 2009) 1

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most