Representation of Informal Practices of Law Enforcement Officers in Media Discourse

Abstract

The image of law enforcement agencies is an extremely important issue. One of the major sources of ideas about the police among civilians are media products forming the image of a police officer. The Russian media space makes extensive use of cinematography to depict law enforcement activities. In films and television series, a certain, largely stereotypical, even grotesque, image of a police officer is widely represented, including a number of qualities and specific practices that contradict the formal definition of a police officer’ social role. We can talk about the practice of deconstructing the image of a police officer and imposing social myths and stereotypes that are largely divorced from reality, but form the audience’s social perceptions and expectations of actual police officers. This results in a cognitive bias, consisting in an inadequate, stereotypical perception of police officers in society. The article analyses the informal practices of law enforcement officers that are demonstrated in media discourse. The research is based on the content analysis of media products depicting law enforcement activities and applies certain elements of the constructivist and socio-phenomenological approaches. The study substantiates that the way law enforcement is reflected in the media products is not representative due to their genre specifics, as well as due to the superficial ideas of the authors of these media products about law enforcement. In addition, the paper analyses the informal practices of police officers and their social determination in the context of symbolic interactionism, social phenomenology and constructivism.