NATURE OF LAW AND

JUSTICE WITH THE RISE

OF NEW MEDIA
SOCIOLOGY II [L-CA-0005]

SEMESTER II

RISHAV SEN
B.A, LL.B (Hons.)

Section-A

SUBMITTED TO: PROFESSOR DEBLINA DEY

 RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LAW AND JUSTICE AND NEW MEDIA IN
CONTEMPORARY SOCIETY

“The country is controlled by laws

Laws are controlled by politicians

Politicians are controlled by voters

Voters are controlled by public opinion

Public opinion is controlled by the media and education”

-William J Federer

“Whoever controls the media, controls the mind”

-Jim Morrison

What is law and justice? While these two terms, right across history have impacted human
lives at a very fundamental level, the concepts of law and justice often confuse and are
misconstrued by many. While the two are inextricably linked, they are not the same thing.
Justice is a broad and somewhat abstract concept based on equality of rights, fairness, and
morality. Laws, on the other hand, are a body of rules and regulations that are set up by
governments and international bodies and is or should be based on the ideas of justice. Laws
are written norms that regulate the actions of citizens and are binding on them whereas justice
is a principle that is not always universally recognized (Squadrin, 2018).

Ever since man decided to forego ancient morality and religion as the basis for
governing the relationships between people, laws shaped by principles of justice have played
a key role in maintaining a climate of social order which allowed societies to flourish and
mankind to progress (Tamirat, 2019). However, with the rise of new media in postmodern
society, media has become a key component in the dynamic which exists between law and
justice to the extent where it now has the ability to shape it whichever way it deems fit. Now,
before moving forward with studying the relationship between law and the new media, we
first need to answer the question, what is ‘new media’?

In 1865, the actor John Wilkes Booth assassinated US president Abraham Lincoln in a
Washington theatre. It took twelve days before a ship carrying the news reached London. A
small boat off the south coast of Ireland met the ship carrying the message from the United
States and the news was telegraphed to London from Cork, beating the ship by three days
(Giddens 2017, 752). Contrast that with the communication technologies which exist in the
twenty-first century which has enabled information to be shared instantaneously and
simultaneously with millions of people across the globe and it won’t be a stretch to say that
society has undergone a radical shift in the way in which we communicate with people. What
has facilitated this shift is the emergence of mass media which includes radio, newspaper,
television, magazines, film and the internet. These are referred to as ‘mass’ media because
they communicate with a very large number of people. New media forms a smaller subset
under this category and refers to those forms of media that are native to computers and have a
digital interactive interface. It includes the internet along with its various forms of social
media and is often contrasted to ‘old media’ which includes television, radio and print media
(Manovich, 2003).

Now, coming back to our original theme, one of the most common ways in which
media has influenced the sphere of law and justice is through the phenomenon of ‘media
trial’. Popularised as a phrase in the later part of the 20 th century and early 21st century, it is
used to describe the impact of media coverage on a person’s reputation by creating a
widespread perception of guilt or innocence often before a verdict has even been passed in a
court of law. During high publicity court cases, the media is often accused of creating an
environment of mass hysteria which not only makes it almost impossible to conduct a fair
trial but also means that regardless of the judgement, the accused will have to live under the
eyes of intense public scrutiny. Media plays an important role in shaping the opinion of
society and can often change the entire perspective through which people view a certain
event. Heinous crimes must be punished and the media would be justified in calling for the
perpetrators to be punished in accordance with the law. However, they can’t usurp the
functions of the judiciary and deviate from objective and unbiased reporting (Jha, 2015). One
such case in the Indian context, where a trial by media made a mockery of justice is the ‘2008
Noida Double Murder Case’. The case in question refers to the unsolved murders of a 13
years old girl Arushi Talwar and a 45 years old male domestic worker Hemraj Banjade
employed by her family. The two were killed on the night of 15-16 th May at Arushi’s home
(Mishra, 2017). The case evoked huge public interest as a result of the intense media scrutiny
which threw around salacious allegations against Arushi and the other suspects which was
viewed by many as a trial by media. The media had already declared the Talwar’s (Rajesh
and Nupur) to be guilty based on evidence and lead without any substantial backing years
before the CBI court found them to be guilty. In the process, the media became judge, jury,
and executioner thus turning the entire procedure for delivering justice into a farce. Nine
years down the line, on 12th October 2017, the Allahabad High Court acquitted the Talwars of
all the charges filed against them. The acquittal thus raises several pervasive questions-will
the perpetrators of media trial apologise? Did an editor or a reporter for once even consider
the possibility that the Talwars were not even remotely involved in the murder of their
daughter? Will the reporters chasing sensationalist stories rethink? What about the damages
done to human sensibilities (Mishra, 2017)? The answers sadly point towards the fact that
such media trials are an expensive price to pay for the freedom which media houses enjoy in
our society under the veil of freedom of speech and will continue to do so unless they are
properly regulated by the courts.

Looking at the Talwar’s case, what is also imperative for us to understand is why this
case received such severe scrutiny from media houses in the first place. According to a study
conducted by the CMS, special programmes on the case took up almost 40 hours out of a
total of 92 hours of news prime time between May 16 and June 17, 2008 (Khan, 2008). What
might help us understand this are the concepts of ‘identifiable victim effect’ and ‘memory
citizenship’ referred to by Anna Kurian in her essay ‘Dimapur Lynching and the
Impossibility of Remembering’. Anna Kurian describes the ‘identifiable victim effect’ as a
phenomenon wherein an identified and identifiable victim is more likely to be aided and
rescued than a statistical victim; numbers do not evoke sympathy, real human faces do
(Kurian, 2015). In this case, it was the cold-blooded murder of Arushi, a thirteen year old girl
which ended up catching the attention of society at large. The murder of a live-in domestic
worker alone would have never evoked the same sympathy which the images of Arushi’s pale
face, devoid of any life circulated by the media did. A large part of this can be attributed to
the class structure existing in the society which looks down on people engaged in domestic
labour almost to the extent where they are seen as ‘lesser human beings’. However, the death
of Arushi, a young girl from an affluent family with her entire life before her shocked the
conscience of an entire nation as a result of which she became the ‘identifiable victim’ in this
case thus leading to severe media scrutiny. The fact that the murders happened in the heart of
our country in Noida also meant that the facts of the case reached a much wider audience and
as such had more retentive power in people’s mind, something which Anna Kurien talks
about through the concept of ‘memory citizenship’ in her essay (Kurian, 2015).

Mass media can also have a very direct impact on the sphere of law and justice. Often
regarded as the ‘fourth estate’ of government alongside the executive, legislature and
judiciary, media acts as the primary conduit between the policy makers and the citizens (Lee,
1990). As a result it is able to regulate the flow of information between the people and the
government and in the process shape public opinion to such an extent where it would put
pressure on the legislators to bring about a change in the existing laws or create new ones in
response to incidents which disturb the very fabric of our society. One such incident
occurred on the fateful night of 16th December 2012 when Jyothi Singh who was later
rechristened as ‘Nirbhaya’ was subjected to gruesome gang rape and physical torture.
Thirteen days later, India lost one of her daughters when Nirbhaya succumbed to her injuries
on 29th December at 2:15 a.m. In the aftermath of her death, the media, often through
innovative modes of expression such as street theatres and dance performances was able to
successfully channel the anger which pervaded society at that time against the government in
power and its inability to ensure the safety of women in society (Dutt, 2015). Faced with the
immense public backlash, the government eventually ended up passing the Criminal Law
(Amendment) Act in 2013 based on the report published by the Verma Committee which
made the laws concerning crimes against women in India much more severe and
comprehensive (Sachdev, 2019). Bishnupriya Dutt in her study of this incident refers to
political scientist and historian Partha Chatterjee’s conception of civil and political society. In
this context, civil society refers to the educated middle and the upper middle class who relate
to the state through mutual recognition of legally enforceable rights. On the other hand,
political society comprises of the disenfranchised or the lower class who negotiate advantages
for themselves outside of this legitimate rights-based discourses. Historically, the interaction
between the civil and political society had been restricted to a bare minimum. However, in
the aftermath of Nirbhaya’s death, the distinction between civil and political society got
blurred as everyone came together bound by shared grief at the death of the daughter of the
nation. (Dutt, 2015)

Even though it is widely acknowledged that media acts as a ‘fourth estate’ in our
society, it is not subjected to the same system of checks and balances as enforced on the
legislature, executive and judiciary in order to ensure that they don’t supersede their power
(Lee, 1990). As a result, there have been instances where the government has changed
existing laws in order to curtail the ability of new forms of media to disseminate information.
According to Business Standard, over the last 18 months, there have been 33 people killed
and at least 99 injured in 69 reported lynchings. At least 18 of these incidents have been
specifically linked to WhatsApp (Vaas, 2018). Faced with a severe crisis of fake news which
has resulted in dozens of mob lynching cases across the nation, the government in July 2018
clamped down on social media platforms like WhatsApp that were subsequently forced to
take a series of measures which included restricting the option of forwarding messages to
only five people.

New forms of media can also be utilised by existing governments to bring legitimacy
to their rule by using the power of media to reach a large number of people simultaneously
and instantaneously and its ability to influence public opinion. In this context, we need to
understand the political economy approach to media which states that major means of
communication have come to be owned and monopolised by private interests (Giddens 2017,
788). In order to study this phenomenon, we need not look further than the current BJP
government in power in India. Four years after coming to power, the ruling Bharatiya Janta
Party (BJP) has slowly been able to shape itself into a hegemonic power in India. This
newfound predominance, as argued by political scientist Suhas Palshikar, is built on two
foundational pillars: elections and ideology (Vaishnav, 2018). Firstly, in electoral terms, the
BJP has become the central pole around which Indian politics revolves. After its historic
victory in the 2014 general elections, followed by a string of victories in state elections, the
BJP has turned into the dominant political power in India. Ideologically, the BJP has
aggressively moved forward with promoting its notions of Hindutva and it is here that the
ruling party’s grip over media comes into play. In furtherance of the same, the BJP
government had to work on two fronts. First, they had to create a strong brand image of Modi
and portray him as a father figure who could take the nation forward, which would persuade
people to accept whatever he said as Gospel. Second, suppress dissenting opinions against the
government and ensure it never comes up in prime time media. Regarding the first step, the
BJP was able to create a brilliant team of media experts which included advertising agencies
like Soho Square and individuals of the calibre of Piyush Pande, Prasoon Joshi, and Sam
Balsara. With such an accomplished team on board, the BJP was able to come up with
campaigns like “Janta Maaf Nahi Karegi”, “Ab Ki Bar Modi Sarkar”, “Achhe Din Ane Wale
Hain” etc (Pande, 2014). The success of these campaigns exceeded expectations to the extent
where brand Modi became a stronger one than the party he represented. On the second front,
the BJP government actively started cracking down on social media against posts which
targeted Modi or his government on the grounds of ‘objectionable content’. This is
exemplified by the fact that till November 2017, a total of 1329 social media URLs were
reportedly blocked or removed at the behest of the government. In 2016, this number was 964
(a rise of 38% in the first 11 months of 2017), while in 2015 the number was 587. To put
things in perspective, a total of 10 URLs had been blocked or removed in 2014
(Correspondent, 2018). Hence by achieving success on these two fronts, Modi and his
government have been able to legitimise their rule and ideology to a large extent thus paving
the way for future success. A similar form of censorship but on a much more extreme level is
practiced in the People’s Republic of China and is mandated by the ruling Communist Party
of China (CPC). The government in China censors content mainly for political reasons but
also to keep the general populace under control. The Chinese government asserts that it has
the right to censure the content on the internet within its territory and that it does not infringe
upon the people’s right to freedom of speech (Bristow, 2010).

The final facet to the link between new media and law and justice is how social media
has become the platform where inter-group conflicts occur in this day and age. According to
Marx, changes in history are driven by conflicts between classes which he referred to as his
conflict theory. In modern times, social media has become the arena where these conflicts
between classes take place. To exemplify this further, we will look at the #MeToo movement
which has spread rapidly since October 2017 on social media. Following the allegations of
sexual misconduct against Harvey Weinstein, thousands of women took to social media to
share their own stories of sexual harassment. The #MeToo movement thus became a platform
for women to break what in some cases was decades of silence. However, as the movement
grew further, it started taking the form of a ‘trial by media’ where allegations were put
forward against men without being backed up by any pieces of evidence (Pipyrou, 2018).
Moving forward, we will thus look at both the stances regarding the #MeToo movement. On
one hand, we have the prevailing opinion that the movement has become a way of bypassing
the judicial process in favour of public shaming. There is also a line of thought that the
#MeToo movement has only given rise to a superficial impression of justice and that it does
nothing to address the structural problem of sexual misconduct. However, we also cannot
disregard the fact that this movement has given women a platform to come out and share their
stories of sexual harassment which can then be pursued through appropriate legal channels. In
conclusion, the #MeToo movement is plagued by several issues. The fact that these stories
are collected under a hashtag movement without any sort of moderation or verification is a
compelling reason against the movement. However, in our society, silence is the most
striking evidence of violence and if this movement can provide a platform to tear down the
walls of silence, then the outcome can only be positive (Pipyrou, 2018).

Thus, in a contemporary society, we have to acknowledge the fact that media has the
ability to mould the opinion of society in a manner very few communication platforms can
and in the process, it can often encroach upon the arena of law and justice. While in earlier
times the various forms of media were a reflection of society and its members, we have now
reached a stage where society has itself become a reflection of media and the various
propaganda it promulgates. However while talking about the ill effects of media, we simply
cannot ignore how the media has revolutionized communication between people across the
world. Keeping that in mind, the onus thus falls on the people and the governments to ensure
that the administration of justice is not undermined by the influence of media while
continuing to reap the benefits of a globalised world where every person is connected to one
another thanks to various forms of media.

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Dutt, Bishnupriya. 2015. “Performing Resistance with Maya Rao: Trauma and Protest in
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