%0 Journal Article
%T Assessing the Realism of Police Series: Audience Responses to the Russian Television Series Glukhar¡¯
%A Arsenii Khitrov
%J Journal of Communication Inquiry
%@ 1552-4612
%D 2019
%R 10.1177/0196859918774799
%X This study builds upon and expands existing research on the perceived realism of media texts. I study debates that took place across several online forums about Russia¡¯s most famous police series Glukhar¡¯ at a time during which police legitimacy in many countries, including Russia, was in crisis. I address the questions of how media users assess the realism of Glukhar¡¯ online. I outline 13 means of realism evaluation that media users employ, offering a more systematic and detailed model than those proposed by existing studies. I argue that media users¡¯ concern with realism of fictional texts signals their longing for interpretations of the social issues which they think the text refers to. I conclude that media users indeed refer to the real police when they discuss the fictional police, and I identify four patterns in these discussions. I hypothesize that the openness of digital communication might motivate media users to evaluate a media text¡¯s realism because they might believe that collectively they will be able to do this accurately
%K audience
%K Internet discussion forum
%K police
%K television drama
%K police series
%K perceived realism
%U https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0196859918774799