Strategic Open Justice examines how fusing two fundamental components of modern democratic societies – strategic communication and open justice – has begun a revolutionary change in the way courts manage their public media and communication practice. It explores historic developments that have led to contemporary media and communication operations in the courts and how these both build and challenge public opinion and community confidence in the administration of justice and the judicial arm of government. The cross-disciplinary approach combines theory and practice from law, media and journalism, strategic communication, and narratology in a single, internationally researched volume. Examining concepts such as publicity, transparency, media platforms, big data, AI, and open justice itself, it presents a thought-provoking analysis of how contemporary open justice developed and changed, the actors involved, how communication and media drive engagement, and the challenges and benefits in modernising court communication practices, cultures, and traditions.

‘Jane Johnston is the world's leading theorist of public and strategic communication by the courts. Strategic Open Justice explains how courts can move purposefully in the modern mediatised and networked world in order to advance open justice. The book makes a unique contribution to a blend of fields: communications theory, the courts, the law and the media. The book will be enormously useful to courts, their leaders and public information officers, journalists, strategic communicators, lawyers, scholars and students.’

Patrick Keyzer - Professor of Constitutional Law and Human Rights, Australian Catholic University

‘Strategic Open Justice compellingly reframes open justice for a transformed media age. Bringing law into dialogue with communication theory and international practice, Jane Johnston shows why contemporary courts cannot rely on passive transparency alone, but must communicate purposefully, ethically and intelligently. Insightful, wide-ranging and timely, this is an important contribution.’

Angioletta Sperti - author of Constitutional Courts, Media and Public Opinion (2023); Professor of Comparative Constitutional Law, University of Pisa