Additional Pattern Three: Agenda-Setting

A pattern evident from the cross-case analysis is that a police-civilian interaction that is placed and kept before the public in the form of a user-generated online video has the ability to influence the agenda of issues in public discourse, in accordance with McCombs’ agenda-setting theory of media effects. When such a video is available to the public, it can be expected that public discourse will increase on topics represented by that video. Conversely, when a video of a police-civilian interaction does exist, but is kept from public view, it can be expected that the video will have little effect in setting the agenda of public discourse.

The constraints of the present research do not allow the development of this observed pattern into a robust theory.

This observed pattern appears to present productive opportunities for future research. There may be opportunities for fruitful research in the outcomes of police-civilian interactions where a video recording of the interaction exists, but has never been made public. In this respect, Rachner’s Seattle Police Video Project, cited in Case VI, and any similar projects regarding other departments, are likely to provide a wealth of research data in the form of official video. Research based on unpublicized user-generated video will be more challenging, as the video data will likely be limited to civil cases that were filed but which did not go to trial, and to internal investigations that also did not result in public trials. In either of these cases, access to the video data is likely to be challenging to secure. A third category, user-generated video not connected with any legal case or police investigation, and which has not been posted online, would probably require canvassing, advertising, or other means of identifying and contacting the videographers.