Do Police Officers Think the Media is Influencing the Public's View of Their Role?

Do Police Officers Think the Media is Influencing the Public's View of Their Role?
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Law enforcement has been subject to many critics worldwide, which can be attributed to the increasing number of officers involved in misconduct, mostly racial maltreatment dating back to the Jim Crow era. Since then, many other crimes have come up, with Gorge Floyd being the most debated in recent times. While some officers have not been indicted, others have faced the rule of law, such as Chauvin, who was found guilty of George Floyd's murder (US Department of Justice, 2022). These crimes led to the creation of the "Fergusson Effect," which is a theory that suggests that the increased public scrutiny in the media can result in a reluctance of police officers to engage in proactive policing activities (American Society of Evidence-Based Policing, 2023). While the Furgeson effect remains an area that has faced a lot of criticism, one thing that remains persistent is that there has been increased scrutiny from the media. Social media, in particular, has made spreading information faster and shaping public opinion easier. What remains unknown is what the police think about the issue. Therefore, this essay will analyze whether police officers think the media influences the public view of their role.
This paper aims to explain from a police point of view whether they believe that the media has a role in shaping public opinion about their roles. I draw on one in-depth interview with a patrol police officer, Officer Vassallo, to answer the following question; Do police officers believe that the media is influencing the public's view of their role? Using interview data collected, I argue that police officers agree that the media significantly impacts the public perceptions of their role, which can be challenging to the service.
The findings from this research make two significant contributions to the criminology literature. First is the need for an effective communication strategy between police officers and the media. While the media can be used to portray the police negatively, the opposite can also be true. Police must leverage the same to create a positive view of themselves and promote more accurate reporting. Additionally, the findings shed light on the perspectives of police on the media's influence on the perceptions of their role, which will provide valuable insights into the dynamics of the police and the media, which has been a topic of interest for criminology. The findings will also impact the policies put In place regarding the media, and hot police will positively use it.
Literature Review/Theory
Scholars have developed a framework to understand the relationship between the media and the police. One of the frameworks is the agenda-setting theory. According to Wanja and Muna (2021), agenda setting is the possibility that the media sets what the public thinks. This shows that the media can shape the public view of their role; with the ongoing debates about police racism and Black Lives Matter activists, the public, especially African Americans, view the police as a threat. Most black Americans do not trust the police to treat them fairly(Jones, 2021). The...