Adolescent Perceptions of the Performance and Fairness of the Police: Examining the Impact of Television Exposure

This study investigates the relationship between adolescents' exposure to news, fictional police/crime shows, and reality police shows and their perceptions of the performance, distributive fairness, and procedural fairness of the police and the link with their overall attitude toward the police. Based on the literature, a hypothetical model of media influence is proposed and tested empirically in a cross-sectional survey of 356 Flemish adolescents. Watching reality shows was negatively related to adolescents' perceptions of how fairly the police exercise their authority. Exposure to the news negatively predicted respondents' perceptions of the distributive fairness of the police. Adolescents' beliefs about police performance were not related to media exposure. Exposure to fictional police shows did not significantly predict police perceptions. The results suggest that news and reality police shows play a small but significant role in adolescents' fairness perceptions of the police.