Policing through Social Media: An Ethnographic Approach

• In Event: International Perspectives on Policing Communities, Procedural Justice and Legitimacy

Abstract

Given the general growth in the use of social media over the past decade and the evidence that suggests that its use has increasingly become a means of citizens holding police officers to account for their actions, there has been a paucity of empirical research into the ways in which law enforcement agencies use social media themselves. This paper focuses on exploring qualitative data emerging from ethnographic research conducted in a Southern American State. Participant observation of police deployments was paired with semi-structured interviews with 20 serving officers from three law enforcement agencies, and the extent and ways that these American officers used social media both for investigative purposes and for enhancing public relations explored. Findings indicated that social media was used to bring attention to the agencies, to influence street-level encounters, inform prospective and aid retrospective criminal investigations. While positive impact from social media use was highlighted by many officers, remaining problems and challenges were also identified. Implications are drawn from the findings in terms of changing approaches to police investigative strategies, the building and projecting of procedural justice and cementing of police legitimacy.

Authors

• Vaughn J. Crichlow, Florida Atlantic University

• Ross Deuchar, University of the West of Scotland

• Seth Wyatt Fallik, Florida Atlantic University