Communication Currents

New Series Vol. 1, No. 9

For centuries, citizens received only descriptions of crimes, crime scenes, police pursuits and arrests. Then news media started printing and eventually broadcasting images of suspects and crime scenes, sometimes including live video of pursuits such as of O.J. Simpson and his infamous white Bronco. In recent years, however, increasingly more police activity has been captured by both police body-worn cameras and citizen cellphone cameras. The article authors researched effects of various components of videos of police violence through a controlled experiment.

The authors point out “most citizens do not have a great deal of experience interfacing with law enforcement,” and thus their knowledge and perceptions of police are significantly influenced by media of all kinds. Cameras worn by police on their bodies (BWCs) have been widely promoted as a cure-all: they supposedly keep police accountable while also informing the public about police work. Studies indicate that videos of police have effectively motivated police reform activism, including that part of the Black Lives Matter movement. However, studies already show their benefits have been overestimated while BWCs (like news coverage) can result in overestimates of police misconduct. BWCs’ effects on all parties are complex and nuanced.

“Factors such as individual characteristics (e.g. social identity), personal experiences with police (e.g. discrimination), and neighborhood conditions (e.g. crime rates) impact the effect of videos on attitudes toward police (Boivin et al., 2017). Further, message-related factors—such as the perspective from which BWC videos are filmed (e.g. the officer’s perspective) – can exacerbate bias in viewers compared to videos filmed by onlookers – which take a more neutral view (Bailey et al., 2021). Other research indicates that interpretations of BWC videos, and attribution of blame for violent incidents, are influenced by viewer and social stereotypes (Bailey et al., 2021; Salerno & Sanchez, 2020; Wilson et al., 2017).”

The authors say their research “utilizes a social identity theory framework in coalition with views of social categorization, colorism, mediated affordances, and extended cognition to examine how features of these videos, including camera point-of-view (POV) and skin color of the citizens depicted [independent variables], interact to affect potential virality (i.e. likelihood to comment and share, actual commenting behaviors) and emotional responses” [dependent variables]. Social identity theory concern how people form and express social identities, and how such identities affective their attitudes and behavior.

Previous research showing that “skin color, a phenotype often used in subjective assessments of race, rather than race, per se, plays an important role in police-citizen interactions (e.g. Crutchfield et al., 2017).” Social categorization of others is based on social identities of others, which in turn being based on assumptions about phenotypes, is how social identities affect attitudes, beliefs and behaviors. Assessment of others’ racial groupings occurs rapidly and automatically, and Social Identity Theory (SIT) research shows that individuals are motivated to enhance their own self-esteem through intergroup comparisons that favor the in-group (social category one belongs to) over out-groups (social category one does not belong to). For example, white individuals are more likely to make stereotypical judgments about others with dark skin and/or Afrocentric features than about those with light skin and/or no Afrocentric features. When individuals react to police-citizen interaction videos, they unconsciously weigh both parties’ perceived social identities.

“A 2 (citizen skin color: light-skinned, dark-skinned) x 2 (POV: BWC, onlooker) x 2 (video repetition) within-subjects design was used in which participants watched eight videos that varied in camera perspective (half of each camera perspective) fully crossed with citizen skin color (half dark-skinned and half light-skinned). The videos used were originally posted publicly on social media channels and depicted lethal police use-of-force including shootings and physical violence, sometimes with weapons.” Videos were 30 seconds long, with any criminal behavior removed. All citizens were men, and all police officers were light-skinned.

Subjects (N=96) were young (mean age 20.61), identified mostly as male (58%), undergraduate students at a public university. Ethnically they identified as 62.5% white, 15.62% Hispanic, 8.33% Asian/Pacific Islander, and 4.17% other. No subjects identified as Black and 9.37% of participants chose not to provide their ethnic identity. They were 44.79% Democrats, 22.92% Republicans, the remainder other.

Research subjects were asked to write comments that they would make, if they made comments on such videos, and their responses were analyzed for “(1) normative statements about police and (2) citizens, (3) evaluative statements about police and (4) citizens, (5) systematic race issues being raised, and (6) information seeking.” The authors developed a coding scheme to identify common themes in those comments while also exhaustively identifying all content regardless of whether it was related to those themes. (Intercoder reliability among the three authors was extremely high.) The content analysis showed 31.35% of comments were negative ones about police; 26.08% were information seeking; 9.74% of comments were normative about police; 9.48% were negative ones about citizens; 7.9% were about systemic race issues; and 6.85% were normative about citizens.

Research subjects were asked about the intensities of various feelings (aroused/intense and happy vs. unhappy) that watching the videos gave them, on a scale of 1 (not at all) to 9 (very), with means of 1.93 for positivity/happy, 6.81 for negativity/unhappy, and 6.23 for arousal. They were also given seven, six-point Likert-sale questions from the Institutionalized Racial Discrimination assessment.

Videos (from both onlookers and police body-worn cameras [BWC]) in which light-skinned citizens were harmed elected more negative emotions, less positive emotions, and more arousal compared with those of dark-skinned citizens. BWC videos overall were rated more negatively and emotionally arousing than other videos. Subjects were more likely to comment on, but not more likely to share a, video in which light-skinned citizens were harmed by police. Subjects were more likely to make negative or normative comments about police in BWC videos when light-skinned citizens were harmed than when dark-skinned citizens were harmed. (In fact, BWC videos not only were not found to be an effective solution for public ignorance or apathy about police violence against dark-skinned citizens, the authors found the opposite: the BWC camera perspective “introduced” “racial bias.”) Not surprisingly, negative emotions after watching videos explained about 54% of variance in likelihood to comment.

Communication Currents Discussion Questions

1. 1) The small and highly homogenous group of participants in this study limits its generalizability. Can you identify other limitations in the study’s design?
2. 2) The article gives the impression that Black/Afrocentric and “dark-skinned” are highly overlapping concepts if not interchangeable. But, hypothetically, what if the study were conducted in a community with a large, very dark-skinned South Indian/Sri Lankan population and a small Black/Afrocentic population?
3. 3) BWCs were originally intended to gather more evidence for police investigators and to limit lying by police and other citizens. Should it have been assumed or argued that BWC videos also would elicit more support or sympathy for dark-skinned citizens involved in violent interactions with police?

For additional suggestions about how to use this and other Communication Currents in the classroom, see: https://www.natcom.org/publications/communication-currents/integrating-communication-currents-classroom

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Rachel L. Bailey is associate professor, School of Communication, Florida State University. Harry Yaojun Yan is a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford University. Glenna L. Read is associate professor of advertising, Grady College of Journalism & Mass Communication, The University of Georgia.

This essay, by Dane S. Claussen, translates the scholarly journal article, Rachel L. Bailey, Harry Yaojun Yan, and Glenna L. Read (2023). Camera perspective and skin color: Biased reactions to viral body worn camera videos of police violence, Communication Monographs 90(3): 350-371. https://doi.org/10.1080/03637751.2023.2202722

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