Critical Investigation Examples ..

Representations of the police ..

During the course of Thursday’s lesson, each group has a question from past Critical Investigation’s to answer, my group and I had to focus on the question “Why is the representation of the police on television programs such as ‘Road Wars’ and ‘Police, Camera, action’ over-sensationalized?” First we discussed the reason, for example, it makes police officers seem powerful and successful with more status. We then looked at the stereotypical representations of the police on TV which were that they’re trust-worthy, never wrong, always right, helpful, well dressed and professional. Why might these representations exist? Well, firstly because they want people to feel safe , protected from danger making them seem powerful. Alternative representations of the police would be for example, criminals themselves and the main alternative, don’t protect people, aren't very helpful. The group then discussed what media concepts and theories could cover this particularly Critical Investigation, Start Hall with the concept of creating moral panic within the media and Mulvey with the concept of over exaggerating stereotypes and the media, again like Start Hall. Finally,  many different types of production pieces would work with this particular Critical Investigation such as a music video like Ill Manors, a documentary explaining the riots which was over exaggerated creating moral panic, a newspaper article again about the riots or a magazine article interviewing the police.