The increasing use of social media like YouTube as a news platform provides new opportunities for the public to react to news reporting. This convergence produces multi-narrative framings of police violence-related evidence that requires further attention, especially given the potential impact on state accountability processes. Using a frame analysis of news outlets and content analysis of comments on YouTube, we identify frames, responses, and the multi-narrative framing that results from this converging environment. Our findings suggest a triumvirate of competing frames around police brutality, with mistrust of media complicating the role news media plays in accountability.
This content will become publicly available on December 1, 2025
Understanding the role of media in the formation of public sentiment towards the police
Public sentiment towards the police is a matter of great interest in the United States, as reports on police misconduct are increasingly being published in mass and social media. Here, we test how the public’s perception of the police can be majorly shaped by media reports of police brutality and local crime. We collect data on media coverage of police brutality and local crime, together with Twitter posts from 2010-2020 about the police in 18 metropolitan areas in the country. Using a range of model-free approaches building on transfer entropy analysis, we discover an association between public sentiment towards the police and media coverage of police brutality. We cautiously interpret this relationship as causal. Through this lens, the public’s sentiment towards the police appears to be driven by media-projected images of police misconduct, with no statistically significant evidence for a comparable effect driven by media reports on crimes.
more » « less- Award ID(s):
- 1953135
- PAR ID:
- 10528577
- Publisher / Repository:
- Nature Portfolio
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Communications Psychology
- Volume:
- 2
- Issue:
- 1
- ISSN:
- 2731-9121
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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null (Ed.)New Age Lynching: The Effects of Police Brutality on Communities of Color in the United States is a primarily student curated, museum style exhibition centered around the problems of policing in American communities of color. This exhibition served the city of Charlotte, North Carolina from September 2013 to September 2019 on the campus of Johnson C. Smith University as well as at the nationally recognized, Levine Museum of the New South. Beginning in Spring of 2019, an extension of New Age Lynching: The Effects of Police Brutality on Communities of Color in the United States has also been on display in Tallahassee, Florida at the campus of Florida A&M University. The complete showcase consists of 40+ individual personal stories of people of color who were killed or severely injured at the hands of police or while in police custody. The aim of this collection is to bring awareness to the misuse of power by authorities, but without the intent of slandering or promoting ideals of being anti-police. Instead, this work primarily seeks to focus on victims by humanizing them through recreating their stories which captures their life both inside and outside of their tragedies. The successfully executed vision around this project has been to inspire open, honest, and safe conversations among the public about police brutality in communities of color. Further, the vision includes encouraging constructive community involvement through activism. This exhibit and the conversations cultivated around it facilitates the act of deconstructing barriers of miscommunication and misunderstanding, particularly between black and brown people and law enforcement.more » « less
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Research Summary The onset of extreme social distancing measures is expected to have a dramatic impact on crime. Here, we examine the impact of mandated, city‐wide social distancing orders aimed at limiting the spread of COVID‐19 on gang‐related crime in Los Angeles. We hypothesize that the unique subcultural processes surrounding gangs may supersede calls to shelter in place and allow gang‐related crime to persist. If the normal guardianship of people and property is also disrupted by social distancing, then we expect gang violence to increase. Using autoregressive time series models, we show that gang‐related crime remained stable and crime hot spots largely stationary following the onset of shelter in place.
Policy Implications In responding to disruptions to social and economic life on the scale of the present pandemic, both police and civilian organizations need to anticipate continued demand, all while managing potential reductions to workforce. Police are faced with this challenge across a wide array of crime types. Civilian interventionists tasked with responding to gang‐related crime need to be prepared for continued peacekeeping and violence interruption activities, but also an expansion of responsibilities to deal with “frontline” or “street‐level” management of public health needs.
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Abstract Objective The aim of this study was to examine rates of killings perpetrated by off‐duty police and news coverage of those killings, by victim race and gender, and to qualitatively evaluate the contexts in which those killings occur.
Data Sources and Study Setting We used the Mapping Police Violence database to curate a dataset of killings perpetrated by off‐duty police (2013–2021,
N = 242). We obtained data from Media Cloud to assess news coverage of each off‐duty police‐perpetrated killing.Study Design Our study used a convergent mixed‐methods design. We examined off‐duty police‐perpetrated killings by victim race and gender, comparing absolute rates and rates relative to total police‐perpetrated killings. [Correction added on 26 June 2023, after first online publication: ‘policy‐perpetrated’ has been changed to ‘police‐perpetrated’ in the preceding sentence.] We also conducted race‐gender comparisons of the frequency of news media reporting of these killings, and whether reporting identified the perpetrator as an off‐duty officer. We conducted thematic analysis of the narrative free‐text field that accompanied quantitative data using grounded theory.
Principal Findings Black men were the most frequent victims killed by off‐duty police (39.3%) followed by white men (25.2%), Hispanic men (11.2%), white women (9.1%), men of unknown race (9.1%), and Black women (4.1%). Black women had the highest rate of off‐duty/total police‐perpetrated killings relative to white men (rate = 12.82%, RR = 8.32, 95% CI: 4.43–15.63). There were threefold higher odds of news reporting of a police‐perpetrated killing and the off‐duty status of the officer for incidents with Black and Hispanic victims. Qualitative analysis revealed that off‐duty officers intervened violently within their own social networks; their presence escalated situations; they intentionally obscured information about their lethal violence; they intervened while impaired; their victims were often in crisis; and their intervention posed harm and potential secondary traumatization to witnesses.
Conclusions Police perpetrate lethal violence while off duty, compromising public health and safety. Additionally, off‐duty police‐perpetrated killings are reported differentially by the news media depending on the race of the victim.
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