September 18, 2010
The Cultural Life of Law
For associate professor Sheryl Hamilton, the intersection of dual backgrounds—professionally in law and academically in communications—has been a guiding force in her work since coming to Carleton as the Canada Research Chair for Communication, Law and Governance in 2003, focusing on finding connections between both worlds.
Her current research project looks at the “cultural life of law,” Hamilton explains, in the context of legal cases that have attracted major media profiles and considerable attention from journalists. “(Law) doesn’t just happen in the courtroom. We talk about it around the water cooler. In a broader way it’s how we make sense of an issue.”
The research will aim to map out a method for talking about the cultural life of law—without many tools available to academics on the subject, she adds—as well as examining its effects, says Hamilton, who previously studied much-publicized cases including Sue Rodriguez and the issue of assisted suicide and John Robins Sharp, a child pornographer in B.C. who challenged those laws.
“It’s different than just deciding the case, guilty or not guilty,” she continues. “It’s a way Canadian society works out some of these thorny ethical issues. In the course of talking about them, we affirm or reject certain kinds of values and attach what it means to be Canadian.”
That discourse can prove to be just as valuable as what happens inside the courtroom, Hamilton suggests, with opinions from the public and media helping to shape how Canadian law develops. Looking ahead, she hopes the research will increase critical thinking about how the law is used to render judgement and produce official forms of value judgement, as well as help move towards further democratization of who are considered valid sources to talk about the law.
“It’s absolutely one of the most exciting times in history to be studying communications, because it’s a moving target,” she says. “Its social significance is really visible now to everybody because they’re living it; they’re not just the audience anymore.”
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