The Politics of Force

This book considers how media coverage of unexpected, dramatic events shapes public consciousness about important social and political problems. It argues that when incidents of police brutality become news, they offer one of the few real battlegrounds available for marginalized voices and activists to find a public platform and take on the powerful. Including new chapters that look more closely at race and racial justice in incidents of police force, the text reflects on the context in which the first edition was written—a time when race and policing were rarely discussed in the news or in the field of political communication—and considers what has changed in media studies since the year 2000, what hasn’t changed, and why. It considers coverage of more recent incidents of police violence and the ways in which the voices of citizen activists are treated in the news today. The text also addresses the important question of how defining political problems through such events might or might not produce more lasting policy change.