IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - Summer 2014 - 11

split-second decisions is a complex issue. The pubSome jurisdictions, most notably Spain, have prolic's orientation to the legitimacy of such force is itself
posed legislation to criminalize videotaping of oninformed by cultural sensibilities. As Norbert Elias
duty police officers.
[5] demonstrated, Western nations have undergone a
Such initiatives provide a sense of the degree of police
centuries-long process whereby citizens have become
concern about this new visibility. In the long term, howincreasingly sensitized to, and uncomfortable with,
ever, they are also doomed to fail because they do not
displays of violence. And there is no avoiding the fact
grasp the nature of the transformation in visibility that
that while police-exercised violence may be legally
is currently underway both in policing and in almost all
authorized, that does not mean that it is appealing.
segments of society [1]. Cameras are almost ubiquitous,
Subduing a suspect, dispersing protesters, or corraland the prospect of controlling the visibility of the police
ling rioters can be chaotic, and make for unpleasant
through censorship efforts aimed at banning recording or
viewing that is far removed from Hollywood's saniconfiscating images is rapidly becoming untenable.
tized portrayals of violence. Such real-life depictions
can become all the more controversial when they are
Battles Over Meaning and Interpretation
slowed down and zoomed in on.
The decisive battles over the visibility of the police will
The routine presence of cameras is changing the
not be fought over the control of the images themselves,
dynamics of policing on the ground.
but in the realm of meaning and interpreAssorted "cop watch" programs, for
tation. This will be a struggle focused on
Encounters
example, seek to record police arrests
trying to shape the public's understandthat two
in an effort to reduce instances of police
ing of what they are seeing. research in
abuse of power [11]. One can also get a
sociology and media studies has debunked
decades
glimpse of how cameras are changing
the popular notion that the camera does
ago would
things from protest situations, which are
not lie, and instead accentuated that the
have gone
now suffused with cameras operated by
meaning of any particular image or clip is
unreported,
both protesters and the police [15]. One
malleable and open to interpretation. Such
telling example of the strategic use of
interpretations are shaped by the encoded
now have
such visibility is how anti-logging activmeaning preferences of the creator of the
the potential
ists have chained themselves to trees
text, but also by the "decoding" work done
to become
using elaborate cement contraptions.
by an audience member who interprets it
international
These protesters are instructed to scream
according to the personal frames that they
in mock agony when the police cut them
bring to the image [10]. This process of
news.
out of their shackles, with an eye to how
decoding becomes particularly important
this will look on video.
in relation to citizen videos where there is
Officers can consequently find themselves in
little of the type of professional encoding work characcatch-22 situations where they are required to use
teristic of mass media texts. Instead, YouTube videos of
circumscribed violence while contemplating the conpolice violence, for example, are often highly ambigusequences of having that violence captured on video.
ous and rely on citizens bringing their own interpretaBrighenti [3, p. 330] refers to such situations as a form
tions to bear.
of "super-visibility," that is, "a condition of paradoxiThe police can play an important role in shaping
cal double bind that forbids you to do what you are
what people believe they are witnessing. This was
simultaneously required to do by the whole ensemble
first brought home to one of us (Haggerty) many years
of social constraints."
ago when taking a police training course in college
which involved instruction in using the police baton.
Ubiquity of Camera Coverage
The class was taught to repeatedly yell "stop resistConsequently, the police are developing both formal
ing arrest" when subduing someone with the baton.
and informal means to try and exert some control over
The idea was that such statements might help to transtheir visibility. A spate of recent incidents, for examform a situation that could easily be interpreted as an
ple, have seen officers at protests remove their police
instance of police abuse, into one that was seen as the
badges or cover their badge number with black tape,
lawful arrest of a combative individual.
something that is particularly effective in making
Perhaps the most famous case of strategically
them anonymous if they are wearing riot gear. Offishaping the interpretation of a controversial police
cers have also confiscated cellphones and destroyed
video occurred in the 1992 rodney King trial. That
footage of contentious arrests, while others have gone
case involved a citizen video of a brutal beating of
so far as to arrest citizen videographers for obstruca black man named rodney King, administered on
tion of justice or, more commonly, appealed to that
the side of the highway by several Los Angeles police
nebulous law to intimidate citizens into not recording.
officers. One of the remarkable things about that case
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SuMMEr 2014

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