Improving Police Social Media Use Practices

Abstract

Phenomenological study findings identified police social media site use practices that law enforcement leadership may wish to consider incorporating. Findings showed that members of the public in their lived experiences desired two-way asynchronous and synchronous interpersonal communication capabilities when accessing social media platforms maintained by law enforcement agencies. Improved police social media use practices in these areas may be a gateway to building stronger community relations and using social media as an instrument to aid in crime solving. The themes identified included crime solving, building community-relations, asynchronous versus synchronous engagement, humanistic branding, and public image.

Evidence based social media use: an exploratory UK investigation into residents’ perceptions of police Facebook use

“…Research to date exploring police social media usage tends to demonstrate that communication has not been a two-way process (Brainard and McNutt, 2010;Crump, 2011;Lieberman et al, 2013;Grimmelikhuijsen & Meijer, 2015;Beshears, Beshears & Bond, 2019 were the most used (49.4%), followed by posts in relation to: public relations (31%), information about officer injuries (3.7%), alerts (3.5%), crime prevention and community safety tips (3.0%), driving under the influence (1.7%), missing persons (1.6%), direction to services (1.3%), other posts (4.1%), and posts that could not be categorised (0.7%). A further interesting facet to Liberman and colleagues 2013 Understanding the police's use of social media has been a topic of academic exploration but has primarily been limited to describing the actions of the police on social media as opposed to evaluating the effectiveness of such actions (Hu, Rodgers & Lovrich, 2018).…”

“…However, the extent to which the police use social media under the principles of a community policing strategy has been questioned. Research to date exploring police social media usage tends to demonstrate that communication has not been a two-way process (Brainard and McNutt, 2010; Crump, 2011; Lieberman et al , 2013; Grimmelikhuijsen and Meijer, 2015; Beshears et al , 2019). For example, Crump (2011) reviewed the actions of UK police on Twitter and suggested that the police’s use of Twitter was most successfully used as a one-way communication strategy only and there was very little evidence of open communication between citizens and the police.…”

“…The third strategic principle is the most relevant here for implementing an EBP approach to social media usage. To date, academic research suggests numerous benefits of utilising social media but according to literature policing organisations tend to only utilise social media to communicate with the public as opposed to engage with the public (Beshears et al , 2019). Therefore, it is argued that police services should take an EBP approach to ensure that their social media posts are effective, with regards to achieving their PR objectives.…”

“…Indeed, the findings reported here provide a good indication of some of the public preferences and the authors conclude that despite greater use of social media this does not necessarily equate to success as many postings produce little to no effect (Hu et al , 2018). Beshears et al (2019) in a small qualitative research in North America asked 30 residents about their lived experience of their police organisation’s use of social media. The results indicated that residents wanted to see more two-way communication and that they perceived their police organisation’s use of social media as a self- promotion exercise whilst pushing information as opposed to community engagement.…”

“…The third strategic principle is the most relevant here for implementing an EBP approach to social media usage. To date, academic research suggests numerous benefits of utilising social media but according to literature policing organisations tend to only utilise social media to communicate with the public as opposed to engage with the public (e.g Beshears, Beshears & Bond, 2019)…”