Mediated public perceptions of police encampment clearances in Canada and France: a cross-national study

ABSTRACT

This qualitative study investigates public perceptions of police encampment clearances in Canada and France. Our focus is on how YouTube users in these two countries judge police conduct in response to videos of police clearing encampments. Research on police public perceptions and police legitimacy typically focuses on public views of the police institution and perceptions stemming from direct interactions with officers. An analysis of YouTube comments on police intervention videos offers important insights into a relatively unexplored intermediate case: the mediated judgements on concrete, specific police action from individuals outside of the perceived police intervention. Further, the scholarship specifically examining social media and public perceptions of policing in cross-national contexts is almost nonexistent. To address these gaps, we ask the following: What do comments on YouTube in response to videos of police encampment clearances reveal about police legitimacy in Canada and France as perceived by social media users? A total of 8,091 user-generated comments across 25 Canadian YouTube videos and 7,086 comments across 29 French YouTube videos were collected, sorted, and examined using qualitative media analysis. Our analysis confirms that the issue of police legitimacy generates dissensus and polarisation. It demonstrates that public perceptions of the legitimacy of the police clearance are strongly tied to the legitimacy of the encampment itself, and more broadly to moral judgements about the groups targeted by the police. Our findings also reveal that French police are more often perceived as violent than their Canadian counterparts.

KEYWORDS:

• Police legitimacy
• cross-national policing
• social media
• qualitative media analysis

Acknowledgements

This manuscript draws on research supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. This manuscript also draws on funding support from the Agence nationale de la recherche, France. The authors wish to acknowledge Patrick Watson and René Tuma, Principal Investigators on the Visions of Policing Project.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Share of respondents who indicate trust in the police (responses 6–10 on a 10-point scale).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.