Skip to main content
Book cover

Do Police Need Guns? pp 111–133Cite as

‘The Devil’s Right Hand’: Policing, Media and Weapons Product Placement

Abstract

An evidence-based assessment of correlations between the presence of firearms in routine policing and measures of safety is only part of the picture. Police capacity and inclination to use force do not operate in isolation. Legislative, organisational, procedural, situational and individual choices all inform collective priorities and on-the-ground officer decisions, but they are also a product of community perception and expectation. This brings to the fore the tropes and constructs of popular culture—and the media, in all its forms. From where is the belief in the beneficial effect of routinely armed policing derived? Why is it that in routinely unarmed jurisdictions, a typical response to issues of mass public disorder, changes in offending behaviours or individual high-profile crimes is “just give the police guns”? Why is their such widespread belief that more ready police access to lethal force leads to better outcomes, for both police and the community? We have established that empirical evidence is minimal, and our study has failed to find any notable positive association between the routine arming of police officers and safety. In this chapter we apply a range of research literature, media examples and case studies to an exploration of fictional media traditions, and the positioning of firearms within dramatic narrative arcs and public sentiment more generally. We reflect on the power of product placement and media priming on perceptions of the use of firearms by police officers in fictional dramas, and the influence this can have on real-world policing. We argue that Weapons Product Placement, the deliberate and extensive inclusion of firearms across screen content, has a subtle and wide-ranging influence on policing styles. We draw these elements together to consider the ways in which the fictional media shape expectations about the need for police to have guns, and influence the belief that having a gun is an essential and positive aspect of policing.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution.

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • DOI: 10.1007/978-981-15-9526-4_7
  • Chapter length: 23 pages
  • Instant PDF download
  • Readable on all devices
  • Own it forever
  • Exclusive offer for individuals only
  • Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout
eBook
USD   54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • ISBN: 978-981-15-9526-4
  • Instant PDF download
  • Readable on all devices
  • Own it forever
  • Exclusive offer for individuals only
  • Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout
Hardcover Book
USD   69.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
Learn about institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    News media, whether in legacy or new media forms, and social media in its many platforms and manifestations, are also important, but they are not examined in this chapter.

  2. 2.

    The examples discussed in this chapter are illustrative. We acknowledge that there are, of course, numerous movies and television shows that depict similar behaviours. Our purpose here is not to offer a comprehensive analysis of the prevalence and effect of tobacco use in fictional drama, but to highlight relevant trends, issues and changes.

  3. 3.

    Bodyguard was first broadcast by the BBC, and subsequently made available for streaming via Netflix.

  4. 4.

    At the time of writing, a tragic mass-shooting has caused to the Canadian government to push for more restrictive gun control laws (Cecco 2020).

References

  • Adler, R. (1999). Here’s smoking at you, kid: Has tobacco product placement in the movies really stopped. Montana Law Review, 60(2), 243–248.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ali, C. (2017). Media localism: The policies of place. Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press.

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  • Alitavoli, R., & Kaveh, E. (2018). The U.S.media's effect on public's crime expectations: A cycle of cultivation and agenda-setting theory. Societies 8(2075–4698), 58.

    Google Scholar 

  • Alves, T. (2018). 10 awesome New Zealand TV shows to watch. Culture Trip (London), 21 Mar.

    Google Scholar 

  • Australian Communications and Media Authority. (2020). Content rules for broadcasters. Canberra: Australian Communications and Media Authority.

    Google Scholar 

  • Australian Government. (2020). Supporting Australian stories on our screens: Options paper. Canberra: Australian Government.

    Google Scholar 

  • Balasubramanian, S., Karrh, J., & Patwardhan, H. (2006). Audience response to product placements: An integrative framework and future research agenda. Journal of Advertising, 35, 115–141.

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  • Booker, C. (2004). The seven basic plots: Why we tell stories. London: Continuum.

    Google Scholar 

  • Broadcasters’ Audience Research Board. (2019). The viewing report: Our annual exploration of the UK’s viewing habits. London: Broadcasters’ Audience Research Board.

    Google Scholar 

  • Broadhurst, R. G. (2009). Policing in context: An introduction to police work in Australia. Melbourne: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Browder, L. (2019). The gun industry wants to sell your kid an AR-15. In: J. Carlson, H. Shapira & K. A. Goss (Eds.), Gun studies: Interdisciplinary approaches to politics, policy, and practice. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bushman, B. J., Jamieson, P. E., Weitz, I., et al. (2013). Gun violence trends in movies. Pediatrics, 132, 1014.

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  • Campbell, J. (1969). The hero with a thousand faces. Novato, CA: Pantheon Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Campos, L. P. (2015). Cultural scripting for forever wars. Transactional Analysis Journal, 45, 276–288.

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  • Cecco, L. (2020). Trudeau announces Canada is banning assault-style weapons. The Guardian, 2 May.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chen, H., & Wang, Y. (2016). Product placement in top grossing Hollywood movies: 2001–2012. Journal of Promotion Management, 22, 835–852.

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  • Claus, S. (2017). Canadian broadcasting policy at issue: From Marconi to Netflix. Canadian Radio, Television and Telecommunications Commission. Available from: https://crtc.gc.ca/eng/acrtc/prx/2017claus.html.

  • Coombs, J., Bond, L., Van, V., et al. (2011). Below the line: The tobacco industry and youth smoking. The Australasian Medical Journal, 4, 655–673.

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  • Cowley, E., & Barron, C. (2008). When product placement goes wrong: The effects of program liking and placement prominence. Journal of Advertising, 37, 89–98.

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  • Cummings, K. M., & Proctor, R. N. (2014). The changing public image of smoking in the United States: 1964–2014. Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention, 23, 32–36.

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  • Cummings, M, & Cummings, E. (2014). How accurate is Lone Survivor? Slate [online]. Available from: https://slate.com/culture/2014/01/lone-survivor-accuracy-fact-vs-fiction-in-the-mark-wahlberg-and-peter-berg-movie-adaptation-of-marcus-luttrells-memoir.html.

  • Curtin, M., & Shattuc, J. (2018). The American television industry. London: Bloomsbury.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dowler, K. (2002). Media influence on attitudes toward guns and gun control. American Journal of Criminal Justice, 26, 235–247.

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  • Dowler, K. (2003). Media consumption and public attitudes toward crime and justice: The relationship between fear of crime, punitive attitudes, and perceived police effectiveness. Journal of Criminal Justice and Popular Culture, 10, 109–126.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dowler, K., & Zawilski, V. (2007). Public perceptions of police misconduct and discrimination: Examining the impact of media consumption. Journal of Criminal Justice, 35, 193–203.

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  • Dunleavy, T., & Joyce, H. (2011). New Zealand film and television: Institution, industry and cultural change. Bristol, UK: Intellect Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Eagle, L., & Dahl, S. (2018). Product placement in old and new media: Examining the evidence for concern. Journal of Business Ethics, 147, 605–618.

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  • Earle, S. (1988). The devil’s right hand. LP copperhead road. Universal City, CA: Uni Records.

    Google Scholar 

  • ENP Newswire. (2019). Broadcast and media technology market: skyrocketing growth of streaming and transition away from conventional pay TV grab headlines. ENP Newswire. Normans Media Ltd.

    Google Scholar 

  • Eschholz, S., Mallard, M., & Flynn, S. (2004). Images of prime time justice: A content analysis of ‘NYPD Blue and ‘Law and Order.’ Journal of Criminal Justice and Popular Culture, 10, 161–180.

    Google Scholar 

  • Evans, R. W., Farmer, C., & Saligari, J. (2016). Mental illness and gun violence: Lessons for the United States from Australia and Britain. Violence and Gender, 3, 150–156.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fierman, D. (1999). Where hollywood gets its guns. Entertainment Weekly, 488, 49, 6 April.

    Google Scholar 

  • Finlay, K., Marmurek, H. H. C., & Morton, R. (2005). Priming effects in explicit and implicit memory for textual advertisements. Applied Psychology: An International Review, 54, 442–455.

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  • Fuchs, M., S. (2005). Big Tobacco and hollywood: kicking the habit of product placement and on-screen smoking. Journal of Health Care Law and Policy, 343.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gardner, E. (2014). Reese witherspoon film dropout sparks lawsuit against financiers. Hollywood Reporter, 19 March. Prometheus Global Media, LLC.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gerbner, G., Gross, L., Morgan, M., et al. (1980). The “mainstreaming” of America: Violence profile No. 11. Journal of Communication, 30, 10–29.

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  • Gilbert, A. (2019). Push, pull, rerun: Television reruns and streaming media. Television and New Media, 20(7), 686–701.

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  • Glantz, S., Titus, K., Mitchell, S., et al. (2010). Smoking in top-grossing movies–United States, 1991–2009. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, 59, 1014–1017.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goodman-Delahunty, J. , Tait, D. (2006). DNA and the changing face of justice. Australian Journal of forensic Sciences 38, 97–106.

    Google Scholar 

  • Greenhalgh, E. M., Scollo, M. M., & Winstanley, M. H. (2020). Tobacco in Australia: facts and issues. Available at: https://www.tobaccoinaustralia.org.au.

  • Grzyb, T., Dolinski, D., Kozłowska, A. (2018). Is product placement really worse than traditional commercials? Cognitive load and recalling of advertised brands. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, article 1519.

    Google Scholar 

  • Haag, P. (2016). The gunning of America: Business and the making of American gun culture. New York: Basic Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hartley, L. P. (1958). The go-between. Harmondsworth: Penguin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Higson, A., et al. (2015). British cinema, Europe and the global reach for audiences. In I. Bondebjerg (Ed.), European cinema and television (pp. 127–150). London: Palgrave Macmillan.

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  • Hilgard, J., Engelhardt, C. R., & Bartholow, B. D. (2016). Brief use of a specific gun in a violent game does not affect attitudes towards that gun. Royal Society Open Science, 3 (11). https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.160310.

  • Hudson, S., & Elliott, C. (2013). Measuring the impact of product placement on children using digital brand integration. Journal of Food Products Marketing, 19, 176–200.

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  • Truth Initiative. (2018). While you were streaming: Tobacco use sees a renormalization in on-demand digital content, diluting progress in broadcast and theaters. Washington DC: Truth Initiative.

    Google Scholar 

  • Internet Movie Firearms Database. (2020). The internet movie firearms database. Available at: https://www.imfdb.org/wiki/Main_Page

  • Jacobs, R. N. & McKernan, B. (2008). American television as a global public sphere. Conference Papers—American Sociological Association, 1.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jamieson, P. E., & Romer, D. (2010). Trends in US movie tobacco portrayal since 1950: A historical analysis. Tobacco Control, 19, 179–184.

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  • Karniouchina, E. V., Uslay, C., & Erenburg, G. (2011). Do marketing media have life cycles? The case of product placement in movies. Journal of Marketing, 75, 27–48.

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  • Keller, T. E., Ju, T. W., Ong, M., et al. (2004). The US national tobacco settlement: The effects of advertising and price changes on cigarette consumption. Applied Economics, 36, 1623–1629.

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  • Kort-Butler, L. A., & Hartshorn, K. J. S. (2011). Watching the detectives: Crime programming, fear of crime, and attitudes about the criminal justice system. The Sociological Quarterly, 52, 36–55.

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  • Kuhn, K.-A.L., Hume, M., & Love, A. (2010). Examining the covert nature of product placement: Implications for public policy. Journal of Promotion Management, 16, 59–79.

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  • Law, S., & Braun-La Tour, K. A. (2003). Product placements: How to measure their impact. In L. J. Shrum (Eds.), The psychology of entertainment media. London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates

    Google Scholar 

  • Leonardi-Bee, J., Nderi, M., & Britton, J. (2016). Smoking in movies and smoking initiation in adolescents: Systematic review and meta-analysis. Addiction, 111, 1750–1763.

    Google Scholar 

  • Levin, M. (1994). Tobacco firm paid $950,000 to place cigarettes in films: Company paid actors in cash, cars or jewelry in early ‘80s, memos say: Industry says it has halted practice. Los Angeles Times, 19 May.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lyons, A., McNeill, A., & Britton, J. (2013). Tobacco imagery on prime time UK television. Tobacco Control, 23, 257–263.

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  • McKay, H. (2014). How Hollywood helps gun makers sell their guns. Fox News, 25 Mar.

    Google Scholar 

  • McKenzie, E. (2018). Top 10 television programmes 2018. StopPress, 5 Dec.

    Google Scholar 

  • McLaughlin, E. (2005). From reel to ideal: The Blue Lamp and the popular cultural construction of the English ‘bobby’ . Crime, Media, Culture, 1, 11–30.

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  • Netflix Investors. (2020). Financial statements. Available at: https://www.netflixinvestor.com/financials/financial-statements/default.aspx

  • Palmer, B. (1998). When product placement goes horribly, horribly wrong. Fortune, 138, 48, 21 Dec.

    Google Scholar 

  • Parliament of Canada. (2014). Canadian broadcasting policy. Ottawa: Library of Parliament (Canada).

    Google Scholar 

  • Pascoe, R. (2012). Content regulation in Australia : Plus a change. Communications Law Bulletin, 31, 11–16.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pohlmann, S. (2019). Playing the field: Video games and American studies. Boston: Walter de Gruyter.

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  • Porter, N. (2019). 2018–19 TV season ratings: 90% of veteran broadcast shows fall. The Hollywood Reporter, 23 May.

    Google Scholar 

  • Quinn, K. (2020). Australian creators fear extension of ‘emergency’ TV content quotas. The Age [Melbourne], 19 Apr.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rhineberger-Dunn, G., Briggs, S. J., & Rader, N. E. (2017). The CSI effect, DNA discourse, and popular crime dramas. Social Science Quarterly, 98, 532–547.

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  • Robinson, R. (2020). Normalising injustice. The USC Annenberg Norman Lear Center. Available from: https://hollywood.colorofchange.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Normalizing-Injustice_Complete-Report-2.pdf

  • Rogers, M. D. (2003). Police force—an examination of the use of force, firearms and less-lethal weapons by British police. Police Journal, 3, 189–203.

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  • SIG Saur. (2020). SIG Saur: Never settle. Available from: https://www.sigsauer.com/company/. Accessed 24 Jan 2020.

  • Soulliere, D. M. (2003). Prime-time murder: Presentations of murder on popular television justice programs. Journal of Criminal Justice and Popular Culture, 10, 12–38.

    Google Scholar 

  • Soulliere, D. M. (2004). Policing on prime-time: A comparison of television and real-world policing. American Journal of Criminal Justice, 28, 215–233.

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  • Squires, P. (2019). Semi-automatics for the people? The marketing of a new kind of man. In J. Carlson, H. Shapira, & K. A. Goss, et al. (Eds.), Gun studies: Interdisciplinary approaches to politics, policy, and practice. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Statista. (2020). Number of Netflix paying streaming subscribers worldwide from 3rd quarter 2011 to 4th quarter 2019. Available at: https://www.statista.com/statistics/250934/quarterly-number-of-netflix-streaming-subscribers-worldwide/

  • Stockwell, T. F., & Glantz, S. A. (1997). Tobacco use is increasing in popular films. Tobacco Control, 6, 282–284.

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  • Street, J. (2016). Dirty Harry’s America : Clint Eastwood, Harry Callahan, and the conservative backlash. Gainesville: University Press of Florida.

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  • Surette, R. (2015). Media, crime, and criminal justice : Images, realities, and policies. Stamford: Cengage Learning.

    Google Scholar 

  • Surette, R. (2016a). Copycat crime and copycat criminals: concepts and research questions Journal of Criminal Justice and Popular Culture 18, 49–78.

    Google Scholar 

  • Surette, R. (2016b). Measuring copycat crime. Crime, Media, Culture 12, 37–64.

    Google Scholar 

  • Turney, L. (2010). The failure of DNA forensic testing: A case study of the 2009 Australian bushfire disaster. New Genetics & Society, 29, 225–240.

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  • Vincent, F. H. R. (2010). Report: Inquiry into the circumstances that led to the conviction of Mr Farah Abdulkadir Jama. Melbourne: Victorian Government Printer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Weinberger, E. (2019). One summer in America. London Review of Books, 41, 11–18.

    Google Scholar 

  • Young, A. (2010). The scene of violence: Cinema, crime and affect. Oxon: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Deakin University, Geelong, Australia

    Dr Richard Evans & Dr Clare Farmer

Authors
  1. Dr Richard Evans
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Dr Clare Farmer
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Richard Evans .

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

Copyright information

© 2021 The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

About this chapter

Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Evans, R., Farmer, C. (2021). ‘The Devil’s Right Hand’: Policing, Media and Weapons Product Placement. In: Do Police Need Guns?. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-9526-4_7

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-9526-4_7

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore

  • Print ISBN: 978-981-15-9525-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-981-15-9526-4

  • eBook Packages: Law and CriminologyLaw and Criminology (R0)