An Exploratory Study of Public Perceptions of Police Conduct Depicted in Body Worn Camera Footage on YouTube

Abstract

This exploratory study builds on scholarship that has examined how social situations are defined and understood on social media. My concern in this paper is how users posting on a single channel on the video-sharing site YouTube judge police conduct in the context of police Body Worn Camera (BWC) footage. Scholarship has yet to explore this issue. Police conduct refers to how officers behave in the course of their duties as members of law enforcement. A total of 87,691 user-generated comments on YouTube posted in response to police BWC footage were collected and examined using qualitative media analysis. Three key themes relative to user judgements emerged from an analysis of these data: parroting of news media narratives, audio-visual cues and interpretation of the footage, and cultural contexts. The findings herein supply evidence that continues to illustrate that media formats retain a powerful influence over public perceptions and, while not generalizable, does provide some insight into the developing influence of social media on police legitimacy. Suggestions for future research are noted.