The Courtroom on Camera

This book presents an interdisciplinary analysis of the increasing use of cameras in the courtroom.

It’s been over 100 years since the Crime and Justice Act of 1925 banned cameras, sketches, and portrait-making in all courtrooms in England and Wales. But over the last 20 years, these restrictions have slowly been softened. Many courts in the UK now livestream their proceedings directly to the citizens, and a similar trend can be seen across the world, in part following the exigencies of Covid-19 and the need to maintain social distance. The reintroduction of cameras into the courtroom is accompanied by a wider transformation from physical to virtual/hybrid courts and the establishment of data-driven governance and digital infrastructures for court management systems. This transformation also coincides with a shift from traditional media to social media, where visual culture is replacing the power of the text, traditional public spheres are becoming virtual, and the citizen’s relationship with the state is increasingly digitised. Against this background the contributors to this book examine the use of cameras in courtrooms in various jurisdictions – including the UK, USA, India, and the Netherlands. Analysing its implications for law’s relationship to images, and the court’s relationship to the public in the new digital era, the book reveals how the use of cameras in the courtroom intersects with courts’ claims to open justice, whilst shedding light on evolving ideas of public access to courtrooms and legal spectatorship in the 21st century.

This book will be of considerable interest to students and scholars of socio-legal studies, legal theory, and cultural and media studies.