Communities of international legal discourse have been increasingly favouring tweets and blogs over traditional media of academic expression. Legal practice communities have likewise been abandoning press releases in favour of tweets and digital newsletters. For discourse communities, this trend can broaden the scope of eligible participants, while encouraging progress through contestation and legal pluralism. At the same time, it may encourage over-contentiousness, sensationalism, “celebritism”, and “click-hunting”, at the expense of genuine dialogue and problem-solving. For communities of practice, the spatial particularities of social media platforms prompt rapid exchanges and reposts with minimal prior reflection, while offering no tangible benefits compared to traditional means of law shaping. The trend, in any event, appears irreversible. We should thus shift to capitalizing on this trend’s benefits while mitigating its various side effects through an organic process of increased awareness.
