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Mass Media Police

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Discussion
At San Francisco State University and other colleges, mass media had a slight effect on people’s perception of police, but the data was not entirely conclusive on whether or not mass media was a direct causation; the survey is suggestive in that mass media is indeed a slight modifier of people’s perception of police. Majority of the respondents had some sort of a physical interaction with the police, but most of the interactions involved some sort of traffic violation and most of the people felt that they their perception of police stemmed from their personal experience with the police, as well as conversations with friends and family. Though when asked if mass media does sway people’s perception and whether they have been swayed …show more content…

The mass media, and to a greater extent, social media, has been pumping out more and more reports about the fatalities that officers have caused and the one commonality between all the fatalities, is that predominantly black people are being killed by police officers. Through the increased reporting and increased activism from the Black Lives Matter movement, there has been a perception that the use of force is extreme and a common occurrence. There has been a lack of evidence showing that this is true, but for a fact, black people have been oppressed in the United States and the remnants of the oppression remain evident. Thus police who have a reputation for practicing racial profiling, which is highly debatable, creates a separation between law enforcement and the community. Through the heavily politicized and reported case of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, the line between the community and police have divided the two groups, allowing misinformation to be said of both sides (Wasilewski and Olson, 2014) At the same time, demonizing police officers for their actions and creating a generalization for a group of people who protect and serve, but also wear a badge and a uniform, labeling them as abusive racists. (Cohen, …show more content…

The study concluded that people’s perception is not easily swayed by mass media, though at the same time, there weren’t any major police controversies that could have been reported on and promoted; during that nine-month period, there was no content to conduct a good study. Whereas, when this questionnaire was being passed around on social media, there was an emergent of police controversies throughout the country of various police scandals. The average amount of consumption between the respondents was approximately six hours per respondent, though despite that, the data shows that there is not a massive effect on people’s perception of police by mass media. There was a slight effect by the consumption of mass media, because despite the few people who felt that the police were ineffective and dangerous, no one had actually any incriminating experiences with any law enforcement official. There were very few respondents that felt they were abused by the police, in which they felt the officer they had interacted with was being harsh, or an “asshole”, or was going through some sort of power trip. Over half of the respondents agreed that there is an effect by mass media on their perception of the police and that their perceptions have been

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