The Media as a Judicial and Police Resource

Abstract

This article examines how media reports of police court trials played an important discursive role in the workings of summary justice and the emergence of the policed society in Scotland in the first half of the nineteenth century. It argues that the dominant messages that trial coverage conveyed were laden with middle-class social and cultural assumptions concerning the accessibility, usefulness and fairness of the courts, and the character and guilt of the accused. Above all, the reports spoke to the intrinsic value of lay magistrates as paternal agents of community conflict resolution and police courts and, more subtly, the police as firm but trustworthy levers of urban discipline.     

民俗文化的特征与其资源的保护与开发略论

民俗是社会文化的基础性资源 ,但在经济全球化和我国社会转型的双重境遇下正面临加快湮没的危机。人类应当在安享经济进步的巨大成就及其伴随的一体化和统一性之便的同时 ,也继续享有我们祖祖辈辈拥有过、而今正在遭到人为损毁的多元文化和文化多样性。为此就必须以文化自觉的理性应对滚滚而来的全球化大潮 ,走出对民俗等传统文化资源的认识误区 ,杜绝过激开发行为 ,根据民俗文化的特质对之善加保护 ,在此前提下科学地开发利用。