Copaganda: The Entertainment Media Origins of Policing Attitudes

Eunji Kim, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Columbia University

Abstract: Despite widespread evidence of police misconduct, many Americans continue to hold very favorable views toward law enforcement and the criminal justice system. Why? One potential explanation is the mass consumption of police procedural television programs that tend to feature one dominant narrative: police officers are heroic figures who single-mindedly pursue justice, quell violent crime, and root out corruption in their own ranks. Using a variety of national surveys, we establish a robust correlation between exposure to these shows and pro-police attitudes, particularly among those less likely to interact with police in their lived experiences. Our experiments confirm that these shows influence not only positive perceptions of the police but also various attitudes toward law enforcement policies. Importantly, these effects are more pronounced among those likely to consume these shows in the real world if given a choice. Our findings underscore the powerful influence of entertainment media in distorting the mass perception of law enforcement, serving as a reminder of the imperative for the study of public opinion to attune to the realities of everyday media diets.

Eunji Kim is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at Columbia University. She specializes in political communication and public opinion in American politics. Prior to joining Columbia University, she was an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Vanderbilt University. She received a joint Ph.D. in political science (Arts & Sciences) and communication (Annenberg) and an M.A. in statistics (Wharton) from the University of Pennsylvania. She received a B.A. in government from Harvard University.

Professor Kim’s research has been funded by Facebook (now Meta) as well as the Russell Sage Foundation. Her research has received several prizes, including the American Political Science Association’s Best Dissertation in Political Psychology Award, Best Article in Political Behavior Award, Paul Lazarsfeld Best Paper Award, Wilson Carey McWilliams Best Paper Award; International Communication Association’s Kaid-Sanders Best Political Communication Article Award; the International Society of Political Psychology’s Roberta Sigel Early Career Scholar Paper Award. Her work has been published in the American Journal of Political Science, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Political Behavior, Political Psychology, International Organization, Research & Politics, and Quarterly Journal of Political Science.