Policing through social networking
| Author | Michael F Aiello |
| Published date | 01 March 2018 |
| Date | 01 March 2018 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0032258X17690932 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
Policing through social
networking: Testing the
linkage between digital and
physical police practices
Michael F Aiello
The State University of New York at Fredonia, Fredonia, NY, USA
Abstract
Researchers are starting to explore predictive models for departmental usage of
opportunities to self-represent online. This is the first study to independently address
police social networking in the US across a variety of social media platforms. Using the
sampling frame of the 558 ‘self-representing’ municipal police department respondents in
the 2007 Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics (LEMAS) data, I
collected information concerning whether departments maintained active accounts on
Facebook, Twitter and YouTube in 2014. The LEMAS data provides key independent
variables concerning each department’s community-oriented policing commitment and
technological sophistication. Ultimately, these organisational features are not predictive
of departmental use of any of the three social networking sites.
Keywords
Police web presence, community-oriented policing, social networking, police technology
Police web presence research focuses on both the prevalence of the police online as well
as how police represent themselves to the public through stand-alone websites and social
networking. As civilians continue to embrace communication technologies, departmen-
tal engagement with citizens on social networking and media sites represents an oppor-
tunity to build not only information-sharing networks but also legitimacy. As Bayerl and
Stoynov (2014) argued, uses of images or memes of police brutality and excessive force
occur in a new context of communication. Police web presence can challenge negative
representations produced by news, popular and decentralised media. Several prior
Corresponding author:
Michael F Aiello, The State University of New York at Fredonia, Fredonia, NY 14063, USA.
Email: michael.aiello@fredonia.edu
The Police Journal:
Theory, Practice and Principles
2018, Vol. 91(1) 89–101
ªThe Author(s) 2017
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DOI: 10.1177/0032258X17690932
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