A Textual Analysis of Police Social Media: Exploring Attitudes Toward and Stigmatization of Sex Offenders

• In Event: Poster Session 1

Abstract

More than 14,000 law enforcement agencies in the United States utilize the social media platform Facebook to communicate and build relationships with their communities. A significant 84% of U.S. adults use social media, with Facebook being the most used social media site, both for individual users and for law enforcement agencies. While social media can be a powerful tool to increase community engagement, improve public trust, and develop positive community relations, considerable opportunity exists for more negative social interactions as well. This poster will present the efforts of one researcher to explore and describe common attitudes expressed on social media concerning sex offenders; and the phenomenon of offender stigmatization associated with law enforcement social media posts on Facebook wherein convicted or accused sex offenders are discussed. Specifically, the researcher looked at unsolicited, bidirectional Facebook “comments” nested under original social media posts authored by several U.S. law enforcement agencies concerning accused or convicted sex offenders, with a focus on communication the researcher determined to be thematically consistent with stigmatization. Positive, negative, and neutral attitudes evident in such comments are also described.

Author

• Michelle Johnston, SUNY Canton