Please aim to have done by 11:15 pM
Prompt: How does the concept of police legitimacy intersect with media portrayal, and how does the media influence public perceptions of law enforcement and victimization? Can media coverage enhance or undermine police legitimacy, and what strategies can be employed to foster a more balanced and constructive relationship between law enforcement, the media, and public perception?
Sample Student response: do not copy what they put this is just an example of how I would what it responded to. Not a lot of big words and very opinionated.
The way police are portrayed in different ways in media is not completely accurate. Looking at television, it can paint police as people who are heroes who always use excessive force when necessary and protect people. This helps their legitimacy because citizens feed into the hero narrative and will put them on a pedestal or require more of them. This can lead to two things, a distortion of reality and disappointment. The distortion of reality is a result because it has deluded citizens into thinking that cops are always doing good things and that they are always doing their job to the best of their ability. It disregards the human aspects and paints them to be perfect officers 100% of the time when that is not true. Not to say good cops do not exist, but given that they are human they are not good 100% of the time, they are not perfect. This helps feed into my second point of disappointment. You have these citizens that look at this painting of what cops do so they believe that is all they do, or it is a driving force for them to have a certain aspect of police. Then when the reality of police and what they do kicks in people that watch these shows where cops are shown as always doing their job to the best of their abilities, it does not match up. What is shown on television is not the same as reality so now people do not trust police from that. Police portrayal on shows can have positives, but it can also have negatives. Television is not only the aspect of policing that citizens see.
Now looking at other media, social media, or the news police are often painted as brutal, violent, and using unnecessary tactics to go about carrying out their jobs. When looking at these media there is a heavy negative perception of police and many of the negative things are pushed. The difference between these media and shows is that social media and the news is literally reality. It shows true stories and incidents that involved actual citizens. However, sometimes stories are distorted to make the police or the citizens look like the bad person or people and these media tend to not highlight the good as much as the bad if at all. For example, you see more news coverage of police brutality than them doing something good for the community or saving someone while doing their jobs. So, while it is more of reality and it shows the raw and hideous side of policing it does ignore the good that goes on. The way that the negative things are portrayed and pushed more makes citizens distrust the police and not want to be bothered with them. Not to say people should not think these things, but it also comes with seeing the good too and knowing that not 100% of cops are bad, which is where the main issue is. Yes, people need to know what goes on with policing and how they handle affairs in regard to citizens, but having most of what goes out that is reality being negative does not give citizens the full picture to see that it is not 100% of officers doing these things. Looking at it from this point social media and the news help to undermine police legitimacy and make public perception negative.
If you constantly see police killing or harming people who look like you, people from your community, or just other citizens a highly likely response is to not trust them, and based on what is mostly shown it makes sense. From what people are shown policing is painted in a bad light most if not all of the time which leads people to the conclusion that 100% of police are bad or corrupt. I know for myself that is how I once viewed police. I would see in the news or different posts about how they killed another person or were not fully doing their jobs and from that I labeled all of them as not doing their jobs. I saw policing as just another job where all of the officers just serve themselves and law enforcement people and that none of them would be bothered to care about me or those around me if something happened. After taking classes like these, talking with an actual officer while seeing and learning how he carries himself in his position and learning more about the other side to policing in the research I would do in different classes for policing I was shown another side of what all policing included. I was shown the way that officers protect schools, help citizens, and do events with communities. It changed my perspective of cops from all of them not doing their job or being corrupt to seeing that those things only apply to some of them. That all of those involved in policing can not be labeled as I was previously labeling them because they do not all carry themselves in that bad way when it comes to their jobs.
Putting it all together, for public perception of policing to not be so negative and terrible there needs to be more reality and highlighting the good that occurs more. Looking at shows, they make storylines for views and give viewers a distortion of what policing looks like. Maybe more could be done to show more of the less heroic and necessary violence for justice in their shows. It would help for people to know that police are still human too as they go about policing and serving the community they are in. Then for media coverage and social media, the same amount of air time that something bad a cop did will get the same amount of airtime for something good. Also in the way the stories are shared, they need to be shared in a way where they do not try to paint some horrid picture by insinuating what did not occur, but be honest and transparent when sharing the story so people can actually get the truth. There is also more that those in policing can do to help with public perception. There needs to be more of officers being held accountable for the wrong that they do no matter how big or small what they did was and regardless of their rank or time as an officer. Then also having more transparency of what goes on with policing and having officers be more involved with the community and actually build genuine relationships with communities so that those people won’t just view them negatively. With a lot of work and dedication, it’s possible for public perception to change and be positive regarding policing.
