LEGAL CULTURE OF MODERN RUSSIAN POPULATION PRESENTED BY MASS-MEDIA: FRAME-ANALYSIS CASE STUDY
Various aspect of legal culture of the Russian society are being closely examined by the interdisciplinary research, which is explained by the change of meaning of legal regulation in post-soviet social life. Sociologist are currently recording the discrepancy of legal awareness and legal behaviour on a massive scale, and the frequency of unlawful actions. The goal of the article is to specify the long-term cultural factors defining the types of senses of unlawful actions that are comprehended as obvious by law enforcement officials and by representatives of mass society. The methodological background of the research rests on the ideas of the frame-analysis concept (E. Goffman), which are empirically verified by the observation method, within which the participants of an event in a certain locus of socio-cultural space are observing meaning-making. Providing the material for the analysis, TV series “The cold case” (Glukhar'), is an artistic experience of shaping legal framework, presented by mass-media and positively evaluated by the lawyers and wider public. The results of the research demonstrate the steadiness of legal frame that has been shaped in Russian legal culture, namely, the value of justice dominating the value of law. Within this framework comprehension of an event defines the rapport between the law enforcement officers and the third party of the legal framework, thus, their readiness to violate the law. The analysis of the material points also at transposing the frame from the socio-cultural situation of the 70-s of XX century to a radically different environment of the first decade of XXI century, which is demonstrated as manipulating collective consciousness, switching its’ attention on the value-based level from the inefficiency and marginality of legal system to the performance of law enforcement officials. Analysing the comprehension of the established legal frame by various segments of the wider audience and studying the efficiency and inefficiency of legal reframing by the media-culture contributors is the perspective continuation of the legal culture research on the level of dailiness.