The courtroom as TV studio: the case of the Oscar Pistorius trial

Abstract

AbstractIn 2014, something happened that changed how the media report on court proceedings in South Africa. The Oscar Pistorius trial proceedings attracted much media attention. International journalists flocked into South Africa in droves. Our newspapers, our televisions, our radios, even our Facebook feeds were flooded with information. An entire twenty-four-hour television channel was created with the sole purpose of televising, and then discussing, the proceedings. Everything about the trial – the judge's rulings, the witnesses who gave evidence and especially the verdict – clogged social-media newsfeeds on laptops and other devices for months on end. This has changed irreversibly the manner in which the media and the justice system in South Africa converge. Through a focus on the debates in and out of the courtroom that the Pistorius trial generated, this paper explores the intersection between the judicial function, the media and the public. It was an important moment in post-apartheid South Africa, ushering in a new way of making and distributing judicial images to the public and thereby bringing into being new ways for the media and the public to access and assess the adjudicative role of judges.