Co-opting “Danger” in Specialized Media for the Police

Abstract

Widespread protests for racial justice during the summer of 2020 raised foundational questions about the role of the police in U.S. society. In this article, the authors analyze an underexplored body of media representations that perform ideological work in this context. The authors examine specialized media targeting a law enforcement audience, asking how news articles published on the Web site Police1 represented the police profession and the protests for racial justice over a two-year period. The authors map major themes using topic modeling and qualitative content analysis. They find that the articles represent police work as dangerous and heroic and as simultaneously professional, legitimate, and accountable to broader legal and political systems. In addition, articles disproportionately represent the dangers experienced by police officers relative to the dangers caused by policing. Co-opting the concept of danger may reinforce the warrior mentality of police occupational culture, while precluding recognition of the patterned and racialized harms of policing.