Law enforcement and crime on cops and world's wildest police videos: Anecdotal form and the justification of racial profiling

Abstract

Crime‐based reality TV continues to be a mainstay of contemporary prime‐time viewing. This crime‐based reality programming offers audiences information about police, crime, and police‐suspect interactions, presented in dramatic form. The present study considers the dramatic elements in two of these popular prime‐time programs, Cops and World's Wildest Police Videos, focusing on the ways in which the reality‐based programming represents police/suspect interaction through an examination of 81 anecdotes. Specifically, this rhetorical study identifies a representative anecdote of the programs and comments on an important and troublesome feature of the anecdotal form. The paper argues that the form of these programs serves to justify controversial police practices and, of particular significance, the programming implicitly justifies the practice of racial profiling. Such programming offers audiences poor “equipment for living” in a society that needs to continue confronting the problems of racism and discrimination.