Researchers in at the University of New Hampshire discovered something very important recently. The show COPS is actually useful for something besides freaking out stoned kids who accidentally flip to FOX when it's on. By watching many many many episodes of COPS Mardi Kidwell, assistant professor of communication, learned that making eye contact with a panicked person is a very important way of controlling their behavior. She describes her findings in a paper entitled, "'Calm Down!': the role of gaze in the interactional management of hysteria by the police," which was recently published in Discourse Studies.
Hopefully she won't be performing any studies using Reno 911 as a model of police behavior.
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