“The Only Thing New is the Cameras”: A Study of U.S. College Students’ Perceptions of Police Violence on Social Media

Abstract

The present study explored the impact of publicized incidents of police violence on racially underrepresented college students in the U.S. Approximately 134 college students at various colleges and universities in the U.S. completed a questionnaire that examined their engagement with police brutality videos, reactions about police killings of unarmed Black men (and boys), their encounters with police, and perceptions toward the issue of police violence. The majority of participants were students of color, from the middle to high socioeconomic backgrounds and attended private and public institutions of higher education. The main findings included: (1) social media as a medium to learn about incidents of police violence; (2) students displayed symptoms consistent with post-traumatic stress disorder (i.e., anger, sadness, and fear) after viewing the videos; and (3) student’s race affected how they viewed police violence in social media. These findings reflect that witnessing publicized police killings of unarmed Black men (and boys) is traumatic for college students and contributes to anxiety and fear for future police encounters.