Copaganda : how police and the media manipulate our news / Alex Karakatsanis.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Karakatsanis, Alec, 1983- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Police and mass media--United States.

Police and mass media.

Police and the press--United States.

Police and the press.

Mass media and propaganda--United States.

Mass media and propaganda.

Mass media and public opinion--United States.

Mass media and public opinion.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (400 pages) : illustrations

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Toronto : The New Press, 2025.

Summary:

"An exploration of "copaganda"-propaganda employed by police and news media"-- Provided by publisher.

"In this groundbreaking expose, essential for understanding the rising authoritarian mindset, award-winning civil rights lawyer Alec Karakatsanis introduces the concept of "Copaganda." He defines Copaganda as a special kind of propaganda employed by police, prosecutors, and news media that stokes fear of police-recorded crime and distorts society's responses to it. Every day, mass media manipulates our perception of what keeps us safe and contributes to a culture fearful of poor people, strangers, immigrants, unhoused people, and people of color. The result is more and more authoritarian state repression, more inequality, and huge profits for the massive public and private punishment bureaucracy. For readers of Naomi Klein and Noam Chomsky, Copaganda documents how modern news coverage fuels insecurity against these groups and shifts our focus away from the policies that would help us improve people's lives -- things like affordable housing, adequate healthcare, early childhood education, and climate-friendly city planning. These false narratives in turn fuel surveillance, punishment, inequality, injustice, and mass incarceration. Copaganda is often hidden in plain sight, such as: When your local TV station obsessively focuses on shoplifting by poor people while ignoring crimes of wage theft, tax evasion, and environmental pollution. When you hear on your daily podcast that there is a "shortage" of prison guards rather than too many people in prison. When your newspaper quotes an "expert" saying that more money for police and prisons is the answer to violence despite scientific evidence to the contrary. Recognized by Teen Vogue as "one of the most prominent voices" on the criminal legal system, Karakatsanis brings his sharp legal expertise, trenchant political analysis, and humorous storytelling to drastically alter the way we consume information, while offering a hopeful path forward. One towards a healed humanity -- and media system -- with a vested interest in public safety and equality." -- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Introduction : What is copaganda?

What is crime news?

The volume of crime news

Moral panics and the selective curation of anecdote

Policing public relations

Whose perspective? How sources shape the news

Academic copaganda

How bad avademic research becomes news

Keywords of copaganda : smuggling ideology into the news

Copaganda against change

Progressives want a pro-crime hellscape

What we don't know can hurt us

Polls and making cops look good

The bad apple

The big deception

Distracting from material conditions

Resisting copaganda.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

9781620978917

1620978911

OCLC:

1499928168