The Politics of Force: Media and the Construction of Police Brutality, Updated Edition [Paperback]

Published over twenty years ago, Regina G. Lawrence'sThe Politics of Forcewas the first scholarly book to look at the way in which media coverage of unexpected, dramatic events shaped public consciousness about important social and political problems. In the intervening years, the empirical and theoretical contributions ofThe Politics of Forcehave become more significant, not only because police brutality is back in the news, but because the media system itself has changed. In this updated edition, Lawrence contextualizes and extends these contributions, while including a closer look at race and racial justice in incidents of police use of force.Published over twenty years ago, Regina G. Lawrence'sThe Politics of Forcewas the first scholarly book to look at the way in which media coverage of unexpected, dramatic events shaped public consciousness about important social and political problems. At a time when police brutality was rarely discussed in the news, Lawrence examined police use of force in over 500 incidents, with an in-depth look at the Rodney King case. In doing so, she showed that when incidents of police brutality became news, they offered one of the few real opportunities for marginalized voices and activists to find a public platform and take on the powerful.In the intervening years, the empirical and theoretical contributions ofThe Politics of Forcehave become more significant, not only because police brutality is back in the news, but because the media system itself has changed. In this updated edition, Lawrence contextualizes and extends these contributions, while including a closer look at race and racial justice in incidents of police use of force. Reflecting on the context in which the book was written--a time when race and policing received limited coverage in the news and in the field of political communication--Lawrence considers what has changed in media studies since the year 2000, what things haven't chanlCT