Constructing clickable criminal trials: framing trials and legal professionals in digital news reports

Abstract

Journalistic live blogging entails the conundrum of capturing emotions in a context where they should be absent, snapping up the sensational in the subtle drama of the courtroom and presenting it in a way that attracts readers, thus making it clickable. Applying an inductive frame analysis of live blogs and drawing on criteria of newsworthiness and an emotion sociological framework, this article shows two frames of understanding criminal trials are constructed in live blogs: prosecutorial power and teamwork. These frames serve to construct and reconstruct understandings of criminal trials in Sweden. The frames are partially embedded in the legal sphere thereby reproducing the ideological underpinnings of unemotional rationality while concomitantly conveying a more contemporary understanding wherein reason and emotion are conflated. The study shows further that the media frame shapes how criminal trials are reported in live blogs leading to a somewhat distorted understanding of trials being conveyed. Legal professionals are made newsworthy by drawing on news values, particularly emotionalisation, which constitutes a crucial tool for the live blogging journalist.