Purpose

To test whether exposure to news images depicting law enforcement affects public attitudes toward the police.

Method

Participants drawn from a national online panel were randomly assigned to view one of three pictures that depicted a range of hostile to friendly police-civilian interactions (compared to a control group who saw no pictures). Dependent variables were perceptions of police officers’ effectiveness, misconduct, and bias. Moderating variables were respondents’ experiential, ideological, or demographic characteristics. As a follow-up to the results of the experiment, regression analyses were employed to explore other factors that may influence perceptions of police or interact with the media effects.

Results

Image exposure did not directly affect any dimension of attitudes toward the police, but there was one significant moderation effect. Respondents who had been recently stopped by an officer and saw a picture of a friendly interaction between officers and a civilian perceived more frequent police misconduct than respondents in the same experimental condition who were not recently stopped. Routine media consumption was significantly related to perceptions of police in the non-experimental analysis.

Conclusions

Findings indicate that brief exposure to static images of law enforcement disseminated by the media does not independently affect people’s opinions about the performance of police in society. Rather, people’s global opinions about the police are shaped by their own beliefs, prior experiences with officers, and cumulative, self-selected media consumption.

中文翻译：

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警察与平民互动的照片会影响公众对警察的看法吗？媒体效果的多方法测试

目的

测试暴露于描绘执法行为的新闻图像是否会影响公众对警察的态度。

方法

随机分配了一个来自全国在线小组的参与者，他们观看了三张图片中的一张，这些图片描绘了一系列敌对的，友好的警民互动（相比之下，没有看到图片的对照组）。因变量是对警官效能，不当行为和偏见的看法。调节变量是受访者的经验，意识形态或人口统计学特征。作为实验结果的后续措施，采用回归分析来探索可能影响警察观念或与媒体影响互动的其他因素。

结果

图像曝光并没有直接影响对警察态度的任何方面，但是有明显的节制作用。最近被一名警官拦住并看到一张图片的警官与平民之间的友好互动的受访者，比在相同实验条件下未曾被阻止的受访者更容易发现警察的不当行为。在非实验性分析中，日常媒体消费与警察的看法显着相关。

结论

调查结果表明，短暂接触媒体传播的静态执法图像并不会独立影响人们对警察在社会上的表现的看法。相反，人们对警察的全球性意见是由他们自己的信念，与警务人员的先前经验以及累积的，自行选择的媒体消费所决定的。