Advocates, experts, and suspects: three images of lawyers in Chinese media reports

Abstract

Research on the public image of lawyers often focuses on lawyers’ role as advocates and neglects other representations. Based on the content analysis of 669 media reports of Chinese criminal cases between 1979 and 2009, this article provides a typology of lawyers’ media images: as advocates, as experts and as suspects. Even when lawyers are characterized as defenders of suspects, media depictions of their roles are vacuous and lawyers may be considered unnecessary and dispensable. Furthermore, the characterization of lawyers in the case stories has a binary quality that is contingent upon the media's substantive judgment of case outcomes. With findings from the Chinese case, the article calls for more attention to lawyers’ images in the media, both in China and in comparative research on the legal profession.