Date of Conferral

2021

Degree

Ph.D.

School

Criminal Justice

Advisor

Sean Grier

Abstract

In recent years, reports of police use of force incidents have proliferated across traditional and social media. The extent and nature of the impact of these reports on the relationships between law enforcement and the communities they serve have received significant attention from scholars and researchers. In addition, a growing body of literature examining the impact of the media on communities of color and their relationships with and perspectives on law enforcement also exists. However, there is a gap in the research on the effect of media coverage of police use of force incidents on minority criminal justice students. In this study, the perspectives of 10 African American and Latinex individuals currently or withdrawn from an accredited undergraduate criminal justice program within the previous 3 months were explored through semistructured interviews. The interview subjects were located in the state of Oklahoma and identified as consumers of traditional and social media. The goal was to understand if, and how, media coverage of police use of force incidents impacted these students' perspectives on and decision to pursue a criminal justice degree. The study revealed that there was a potential for medias to have an emotional impact on the participants' decisions on whether to continue with their criminal justice degree. Concerns over personal safety had as much influence as the negative connotation of police use of force incidents on the decisions of former criminal justice students to withdraw from their programs. These finding may be used by criminal justice programs to create positive social change by mediating their students' beliefs and promoting transparency between the police and public.

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