Possibilities and Obstacles of Police Digital Communication with Citizens and the Community

Ivana Radić

Abstract


Communication via digital communication channels has been present in police work for a long time. In the period between 2010 and 2014, the European Commission financed a scientific research project to understand organizational changes in the police in different European countries, including changes related to the introduction of new information and communication technologies into police practice. That research showed that the police use social media to detect crimes and their perpetrators and establish quality relations with citizens and the community. As a follow-up to that study, this qualitative research aims to identify the possibilities and obstacles of police digital communication with citizens and the community to achieve a relationship of cooperation and trust between the police and the community. Four focus groups were conducted in two police administrations in eastern Croatia. The research was conducted on a sample of 40 participants, mostly officers of the regular police, including community policing officers, and the rest are criminal police officers dealing with general criminal matters. The obtained results show, just like the results of numerous foreign studies, that such an approach can be effective in providing transparency of police work and increasing trust between the police and citizens, but with adaptation of the selection of channels and content of communication to the target audience.

Keywords


police; digital communication channels; cooperation between police and citizens; Croatia

Full Text:

PDF

References


Brainard, Lori, Mariglynn Edlins (2015), ˝Top 10 U. S. Municipal Police Departments and Their Social Media Usage˝, The American Review of Public Administration, 45(6), 728–745.

Colbran, Marianne P. (2020), ˝Policing, social media and the new media landscape: can the police and the traditional media ever successfully bypass each other?˝, Policing and Society, 30(3), 295–309.

Davis, Edward F., Alejandro A. Alves, David Alan Sklansky (2014), ˝Social Media and Police Leadership: Lessons From Boston˝, Australasian Policing, 6(1), 10–16.

Denef, Sebastian, Nico Kaptein, Saskia Bayerl, Leonardo Ramirez (2012), Best Practice in Police Social Media Adaptation, COMPOSITE – Comparative Police Studies in the EU. http://hdl.handle.net/1765/40562 [28. 6. 2022.]

Gilkerson, Nathan, Kati Tusinski Berg (2017), ˝Social Media, Hashtag Hijacking, and the Evolution of an Activist Group Strategy˝, in: Austin, Lucinda L., Yan Jin (eds.), Social Media and Crisis Communication, Routledge, New York, 141–157.

Heverin, Thomas, Lisl Zach (2011), ˝Use of microblogging for collective sense-making during violent crises: A study of three campus shootings˝, Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 63(1), 34–47.

Horst, Heather A., Daniel Miller (2012), Digital anthropology, Routledge, London

Hu, Xiaochen, Nicholas P. Lovrich (2019), ˝Social media and the police: A study of organizational characteristics associated with the use of social media˝, Policing An International Journal of Police Strategies and Management, 42(4), 654–670.

Lieberman, Joel, Deborah Koetzle, Mari Sakiyama (2013), ˝Police Departments’ Use of Facebook: Patterns and Policy Issues˝, Police Quarterly, 16(4), 438–462.

Montasari, Reza, Victoria Carpenter, Anthony J. Masys (2023), Digital Transformation in Policing: The Promise, Perils and Solutions, [e-book], Springer, Switzerland https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031- 09691-4 [22. 4. 2023.]

Nikolovska, Manja, Shane D. Johnson, Paul Ekblom (2020), ˝„Show this thread”: policing, disruption and mobilisation through Twitter. An analysis of UK law enforcement tweeting practices during the Covid-19 pandemic˝, Crime Science, 9(1), 1-16.

O’Connor, Christopher D., Huda Zaidi (2021), ˝Communicating with purpose: Image work, social media, and policing˝, The Police Journal, 94(3), 333–352.

O'Connor, Christopher D. (2017), ˝The police on Twitter: image management, community building, and implications for policing in Canada˝, Policing and Society, 27(8), 899–912.

Pološki Vokić, Nina., Milka Rimac Bilušić, Dijana Najjar (2020), ˝Building organizational trust through internal communication˝, Corporate Commu- nications, 26(1), 70–83.

Procter, Rob, Jeremy Crump, Susanne Karstedt, Alex Voss & Marta Cantijoch (2013), ˝Reading the riots: what were the police doing on Twitter?˝, Policing and Society, 23(4), 413–436.

Quinn, Dennis, Owen Hargie (2004), “Internal communication audits: A case study”, Corporate Communication, 9 (2), 146–158.

Robson, Paul J.A., Dennis Tourish (2005), ˝Managing internal communication: an organizational case study˝, Corporate Communications: An Interna- tional Journal, 10(3), 213–222.

Ross, Shane (2016), “Kensington police officer apologizes to nickelback for Facebook post”, http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-edward-island/pei- kensington-nickelback-apology-1.3879808 [23. 8. 2022.]

Ruck, Kevin, Mary Welch (2012), ˝Valuing internal communication; management and employee perspectives˝, Public Relations Review, 38(2), 294–302.

Ruddell, Rick, Nicholas Jones (2013), ˝Social media and policing: matching the message to the audience,˝ Safer Communities, 12(2), 64–70.

Schneider, Christopher. J. (2016), ˝Police presentational strategies on Twitter in Canada˝, Policing and Society, 26(2), 129–147.

Scholes-Fogg, Thomas E. J. (2015), Independent Police Commission: Police and Social Media, Report

Shemberger, Melony (2017), ˝Nonprofit organizations’ use of social media in crisis communication˝, in: Austin, Lucinda L., Yan Jin (eds.), Social media and crisis communication, Routledge, New York, 227–237.

Snyder, Robert. A., James H. Morris (1984), ˝Organizational communication and performance“, Journal of Applied Psychology, 69(3), 461–465.

Sullivan, Jonathan (2012), ˝A tale of two microblogs in China˝, Media, Culture & Society, 34(6), 773–783.

Tkalac Verčič, Ana (2021), ˝The impact of employee engagement, organisational support and employer branding on internal communication satisfaction˝, Public Relations Review, 47(1), 102009

Tkalac Verčič, Ana, Nina Pološki Vokić, Dubravka Sinčić Ćorić (2009), ˝Razvoj mjernog instrumenta za procjenu zadovoljstva internom komunikacijom˝, Društvena istraživanja, 18(1–2), 175–202.

Walby, Kevin, Crystal Gumieny (2020), ˝Public police philanthropy and Twitter communications in Canada˝, Policing: An International Journal, 43(5), 755–768.

Walby, Kevin, Courtney Joshua (2021), ˝Framing fantasies: public police recruiting videos and representations of women˝, Current Issues in Criminal Justice, 33(2), 151–169.

Walby, Kevin, Blair Wilkinson (2022), ˝The visual politics of police Instagram communication in Canada˝, New Media & Society, 25(5)

Wood, Mark A. (2019), ˝Policing's ‘meme strategy’: understanding the rise of police social media engagement work˝, Current Issues in Criminal Justice, 32(1), 1–19.




DOI: https://doi.org/10.51558/2490-3647.2023.8.3.713

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


ISSN: 2490-3604 (print) ● ISSN: 2490-3647 (online)

Društvene i humanističke studije - DHS is under the Creative Commons licence.