ABSTRACT
This chapter examines whether trust in the police is shaped – at least in part – by the mass media. Multiple media sources frame, reinforce and undermine how the public sees the police. The media may weaken public confidence through the constant scrutiny of police activities (Manning 2003), but they may also bolster the myth of an effective police service (Sparks 1992). Fictional and reality-TV formats seem to elevate police to a super-hero status (Reiner et al. 2000), but the media also expose police brutality, racism, corruption and blunders in crime investigations, seemingly undermining public confidence in the police (Garland 2001; Manning 2003). The media are certainly the main source of information about the police for the vast majority of the population (85 per cent according to the British Crime Survey 2009/10). 1 And according to Garland (2001) the media have not only created fear and interest in crime, they have also cultivated, nurtured and ‘institutionalised’ the experience of crime.
