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LEGAL JOURNALISM: INFLUENCE ON THE FORMATION OF LEGAL
AWARENESS OF CITIZENS
Rakhimjonova Shahlo
The PhD student of the University of
journalism and mass communications of Uzbekistan
mamatkhanovashahlo@mail.ru
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.12618827
Abstract:
The media are the main instrument of public control over the
activities of the legislative, the executive and judicial branches of government. At
the same time, the judicial and legal reform being carried out in the country she
herself needs information support and support from the press. By its nature, it is
designed to express and shape public opinion, thereby influencing the legal
awareness and legal culture of citizens. This means that the media and
journalism act as a factor of sustainable legal education and human rights
education, serve as an ideological tool for building a state governed by the rule
of law.
Key words:
journalism, mass media, legal journalism, law, legal awareness
The legal life of the society is widely covered in the mass media. As a socio-
philosophical concept, "the legal life of society" reflects not only the legal reality
(phenomena and processes occurring in the legal sphere), but also the behavior
of people in the sphere of law, the attitude of a person to law. The mass media
cover legal life precisely from the point of view of the individual, which is why
crimes and incidents are criminal or, as a rule, criminal. Sometimes they say that
anti-criminal issues are an integral part of the content of not only mass, but also
high – quality publications. Legal pathology is also a component of legal life,
which consists of a set of elements of both positive and negative orientation.
By telling the audience about new laws, incidents, investigations of criminal
cases, court disputes, etc., journalists form the legal awareness of citizens – the
most important element of legal consciousness. The level of development of
mass legal awareness directly depends on the extent to which the country's
population is legally informed, what is its emotional attitude to the law, and
what is the attitude of citizens to comply with legal regulations. It can be said
that journalism participates in the development of mass legal awareness on two
levels: on the rational level – increasing the legal awareness of the audience, and
on the emotional level- forming legal values and guidelines, a positive attitude to
the law, helping to overcome legal nihilism, and the transition of legal
knowledge into beliefs.
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Of course, there are other channels of legal information, or, in other words, legal
education of the population. These include Legal Information Centers attached
to public libraries, computer-based legal information systems, and specialized
legal publications – all of which disseminate legal information expressed in the
norms of law. Obtaining this information requires quite serious efforts on the
part of an untrained (i.e., not having a legal education) consumer.
Educational institutions and specialized legal institutions (for example, the
prosecutor's office and the bar) are also able to convey information about the
norms of law only to a limited number of people or to a limited extent. And only
the mass media constantly, systematically and popularly provide the mass
audience with information about the facts, events and phenomena of the legal
life of society. Unlike other channels for the dissemination of legal information,
mass media do not disseminate the norms of law, but stories related to the law
and law enforcement tokens that contain a description of specific legal situations
involving people. Thus, the legal life of society is an object of legal journalism –
the same subject-thematic specialization of media employees, such as, for
example, business-independent journalism, political, sports, or environmental
journalism.
In legal journalism, there are different and very different directions: legal
(specialized printed publications for lawyers, scientific and professional),
criminal (operational reports in the media about crimes, coverage and analysis
of law enforcement agencies), judicial (publications and broadcasts about
courts, judges and court cases), advisory (answers to questions). answer
questions from readers and listeners). The authors' goals correspond to the
intentions of publications, categories, and programs. For example, the criminal
direction of legal journalism is typical for mass media that aim to give the
audience the maximum amount of information about the surrounding reality,
and sometimes even shock them with this information. This trend is also present
in high-quality publications that not only report on criminal facts, but also
analyze them, evaluate and comment on the activities of law enforcement
agencies.
If specialized legal publications are aimed more at forming a scientific
(theoretical) or professional legal consciousness of a social group of lawyers,
then under the influence of legal information in the socio-political media, it is the
mass (empirical or ordinary) legal consciousness that is formed. Specific legal
situations displayed in the "broad media" turn into objects of cognition and are
recognized as causes of experience, i.e. they affect the psyche (and then the
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behavior and behavior of the individual).- people - and this allows the media
audience to learn complex legal concepts without much effort. Exciting,
psychological texts and plots with elements of detective stories often have a
stronger impact on the formation of legal awareness of readers and viewers than
texts of laws, discussions or opinions of legal experts. At the same time,
journalism can affect the mass legal consciousness not only constructively, but
also in a dysfunctional way. It is destructive, for example, in cases when
journalists show unprofessionalism and legal incompetence, legal nihilism, when
the criminal world is romanticized in the mass media and criminal morality is
replicated.
The strength and focus of the psychological impact of court stories on the legal
awareness of the media audience is determined by the professionalism of court
reporters and columnists. Judicial journalism is a special journalistic
specialization that gives journalists the opportunity to control the judicial power
on behalf of society, to advocate for the restoration of violated rights, and for
justice. At the same time, journalists solve pragmatic, mercantile tasks, because
the court stories that reveal the most important facts of the case are often used
by the public personal, sometimes unexpected manifestations of human nature
always attract the attention of the audience and contribute to the popularity of
the publication and the author. At the same time, court reporters and observers
need to have an understanding of the judicial system and its information policy,
the specifics of sources and access to judicial information, the ethics of
interaction with courts, the rules for filming and broadcasting in courtrooms,
etc.
Regional and local media also cover cases of serious criminal offenses, but less
often-trials in cases related to well-known people in the region. Civil disputes
are covered mainly in cases where decisions concern everyone, for example,
disputes about housing and utilities tariffs, benefits, loans, etc. Appear in the
regional press and publications about how the court reinstated an illegally
dismissed person, protected someone's right to inheritance, etc. However, the
main topics of court publications are: mass, regional and local publications are
social and everyday crimes and offenses committed on the basis of relationships
between people: murder, theft, robbery, fraud.
