The Police, Victims, and Race: Media Framing of Police Shootings of Unarmed Civilians

• In Event: Constructing Legitimacy and Criminality in the Media

Abstract

Abstract

Over the past two decades, police shootings of unarmed civilians have typically generated short bursts of media attention in the United States. However, the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and the subsequent rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, has resulted in a sustained level of media attention to police shootings of people of color. This paper reports a qualitative content analysis of the language used in news media reports about incidents of police shootings in the last few years. The data were obtain through Access World News. Using a grounded theory approach, I examine the implications of word choices, syntax, phrase construction, and visual images in newspaper stories about the people involved in the reported shootings by police. Preliminary findings suggest that the media outlets construct culpability and accountability differently for African American and White victims of police shootings. More specifically, African American victims are more likely to be framed as being responsible for provoking the incidents that led to their death, and white victims less so.

Author

• Viola Lee Sawyer, Northern Arizona University