Legal Theory and the Media of Law (Elgar Studies in Legal Theory) - Hardcover

Vesting, Thomas

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1784711594 ISBN 13: 9781784711597

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd, 2018

Synopsis

As many disciplines in the humanities have experienced a focus on culture's impact in recent decades, questions surrounding the significance of media such as writing, print, and computer networks have become increasingly relevant. This book seeks to demonstrate that a media and cultural theory perspective can also be highly productive for legal theory. Thomas Vesting approaches law as an artificial and constructive element within culture and emphasizes the many possibilities that varied forms of media have opened to law, from oral history through to scripture, print and modern day digital networks. While providing historical examples for these theoretical assumptions, the connections between media and law are reconstructed in a practical way and with an eye toward the future. The book closes with an analysis of our present age as a network culture and discusses how this metaphorical framework can be of use in thinking about issues such as constitutionalism, human rights, the state, democracy and education. Legal Theory and the Media of Law will be of great interest to legal, cultural and media theorists as well as academics of politics, sociology and philosophy.

About this title

Review

‘ This book of remarkable erudition was originally written in German as a series of four volumes. Bringing together law, communication and media studies, philosophy of language, anthropology and theory of culture, the author shines a new light on liberal law, its various forms and its evolution.’ Author: Springer Science+Business Media B.V.

‘What significance does media (e.g. the form and materiality of expression) have for law and legal thought? Covering a hugely impressive historical range – from oral traditions, through the invention of writing and print, to today's computer networks – this new book from Thomas Vesting offers the best guide currently available to that question. Putting in dialogue media theory and legal theory, Vesting does not shy away from the most difficult issues at the intersection of these two fields. The book will be of interest to everyone from book historians to theorists of contemporary mass media. An impressive achievement.’ Author: Maksymilian Del Mar, Queen Mary University of London, UK

From the Author

Thomas Vesting, Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt, Germany

About this edition

• Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd
• Publication date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 1784711594
• ISBN 13: 9781784711597
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 656