ABSTRACT

Controversial incidents of police-citizen interactions, coupled with advancements in internet media technology has created a new dynamic of how public perceptions of the police might be influenced. This paper reports results of an experiment examining how videos of police-citizen interactions found on social media platforms might influence civilian perceptions of legitimacy and procedural justice. Using 173 randomly assigned participants and a pre/post-test design, we compare perceptual effects of positive, negative, and neutral depictions of police-citizen interactions. Results indicate all media had an effect on perceptions of legitimacy, with negative content yielding the largest effects, significantly diminishing global perceptions of legitimacy, whereas positive content significantly improved perceptions of legitimacy. Our findings suggest that while public videos of police-citizen interactions found online can contribute substantially to increasing distrust in the police, they may also demonstrate how policing agencies might use similar platforms to improve public perceptions of their legitimacy.

摘要

有争议的警民互动事件，加上互联网媒体技术的进步，创造了一种新的动态，即公众对警察的看法可能会受到怎样的影响。本文报告了一项实验的结果，该实验检查在社交媒体平台上发现的警察与公民互动的视频如何影响平民对合法性和程序正义的看法。使用 173 名随机分配的参与者和前/后测试设计，我们比较了警察与公民互动的积极、消极和中性描述的感知效果。结果表明，所有媒体都对合法性认知产生影响，负面内容产生的影响最大，显着降低了全球合法性认知，而积极内容显着提高了合法性认知。