Media Framing of Products Liability Lawsuits and the Social Production of Legal Knowledge

近年来，围绕产品责任诉讼和美国侵权法制度的合理性和公平性展开了激烈的政治辩论。批评人士指责，侵权索赔、原告胜诉和巨额惩罚性赔偿在过去20年里“飙升”，给国家带来了巨大的经济和社会代价。梅·社会科学家回应说，这种批评是基于不具代表性的轶事和“恐怖故事”，掩盖了实际法律实践的模式和影响。学者们认为，侵权改革具有明显的政治吸引力的主要原因是，资金雄厚的侵权改革倡导者有效地操纵了言辞，尤其是大众新闻媒体的偏见报道。该项目包括对两个涉及产品责任的案例-麦当劳咖啡诉讼和针对烟草行业的20年诉讼遗留问题-进行媒体框架的内容分析。此外，该项目将确定20年来新闻中产品责任诉讼报道的共同要素，并研究媒体产生的轶事、图标和来源如何参与国会关于侵权改革的辩论。这项研究通过系统地检查媒体对产品责任诉讼的报道，为学术企业做出贡献。虽然实证的重点是新媒体的报道，但该项目的主要目标是分析实用法律知识的社会生产。有效的假设是，大众媒体产生了现代社会中很大一部分公众关于法律的知识。这种知识反过来极有可能影响公众舆论和关于侵权改革必要性的政治辩论以及常规法律实践。这项研究采用了一种通用的“框架”方法。分析侧重于框架活动的三个具体方面：1)“新闻价值”的必要性，即以个性化、道德化、戏剧化和规范化的方式选择和呈现新闻，以供文化消费；2)在呈现法律纠纷时强调个人责任的特定文化规范的特权；以及3)选择各种权威数据作为故事主线，包括专家的语录、轶事和社会科学数据。这项研究设计测试了这些框架装置在制作有关侵权法实践的新闻故事时的影响和含义。这一研究将加深我们对当代美国关于侵权改革的争论的理解，并有助于对当代社会法律本身的产生、复制和变革进行社会法学分析。

A heated political debate has raged in recent years over the rationality and fairness of products liability litigation and of the U.S. tort law system generally. Critics charge that tort claims, plaintiff victories, and large punitive damages awards have "skyrocketed" in the last two decades at great economic and social cost to the nation. May social scientists have responded that such criticisms are grounded in unrepresentative anecdotes and "horror stories" that obscure the patterns and implications of actual legal practice. The primary reason for the apparent political appeal of tort reform, scholars argue, is the effective manipulation of rhetoric by well financed tort reform advocates and, especially, biased reporting in the mass news media.This project consists of conducting a content analysis of media framing of two case studies involving products liability-the McDonald's coffee lawsuit, and the two-decade legacy of lawsuits against the tobacco industry. Additionally, the project will identify common elements of products liability lawsuit coverage in the news over a twenty-year period as well as study how media-generated anecdotes, icons, and sources have figured into congressional debates about tort reform.This research contributes to the scholarly enterprise by systematically examining media coverage of product liability lawsuits. While the empirical focus is on new media coverage, the project's primary objective is to analyze the social production of practical legal knowledge. The working assumption is that the mass media generate a significant portion of public knowledge both of and about law in modern society. This knowledge in turn is highly likely to influence public opinion and political debates regarding the need for tort reform as well as routine legal practice. The research utilizes a general "framing" methodology. Analysis focuses on three specific dimensions of framing activity: 1) the imperative of "newsworthiness," which selects and presents news in ways that are personalized, morselized, dramatized, and normalized for cultural consumption; 2) the privileging of particular cultural norms emphasizing individual responsibility in the presentation of legal disputes; and 3) the selection of various types of authoritative data for story lines, including quotes by experts, anecdotes, and social science data. The research design tests for the influence and implications of these framing devices in the production of news stories about tort law practice. This research will enhance our understanding of contemporary debates over tort reform in the U.S. and contribute to socio-legal analysis regarding the production, reproduction, and transformation of law itself in contemporary society.