The Impact of a Changing Media Landscape on Police Practice and Legitimacy (original) (raw)
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Policing and Society, 2020
This study explores three issues. Firstly, it examines the effect of the use of digital platforms on the relationship between the police, the press and the public, in the context of restricted police/press contact in the United Kingdom. Secondly, it considers the question, raised in an Australian context (Lee, M. and McGovern, A., 2014. Policing and media: public relations, simulacrums and communications. Abingdon and New York, NY: Routledge), as to whether the use of digital platforms allows the police, or more specifically in this study, the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), to bypass the national British news media. Lastly, it identifies convergences and divergences with Lee and McGovern’s study of police and press relations. Lee and McGovern’s study indicates that, while the use of digital platforms has increased police control over flow of information, there is still a symbiotic police/press relationship. This study finds that, while the use of digital platforms has appeared to increase police transparency, the reverse is the case, and that the use of digital platforms has given the MPS more control than ever before over the flow of information to the press. The study suggests that these developments have serious consequences for the integrity of crime reporting and for democratic practices in the United Kingdom.
The end of symbiosis? Australia police–media relations in the digital age
As the police move further into areas of traditional journalistic practice, the ‘unhappy marriage’ between the police and the media becomes more complex. To what extent this symbiotic relationship has allowed for transparency has varied over time, subject to political, operational and technological change. While acknowledging the police premium on access to information, this relationship is further challenged by police oversight bodies, the spread of corporate mangerialism and media decentralisation. Through qualitative interviews with Australian police, crime, court and investigative journalists, we provide a fresh perspective on this relationship from the journalists’ point of view. In particular we explore the impact of digital media, social media and mobile technology on this relationship integral to maintaining public confidence in the police. This research serves as the basis for further interrogation into police perceptions of the role of the media and how an increasingly mediated public sphere is influencing public confidence in the police.
2017
During the last century, the police have changed from a bold paramilitary law enforcement agency into service-oriented helpers of the public (Motschall & Cao, 2002). As early as in 1829, Robert Peel proclaimed that “the police are the public and the public are the police”. (Kilburn, 2014) In times of digital publics, this holds true today more than ever and is particularly crucial in light of the many studies demonstrating how much the police rely on the support of citizens in order to be able to carry out their tasks efficiently (Kane, 2005, Tyler & Fagan 2006, Mazerolle, Antrobus, Bennett, & Tyler, 2013, Bain, Robinson, & Conser, 2014, Nivette, 2016).
Police legitimacy under the spotlight
Objectives To examine the impact of terrorism threat on the media framing of police legitimacy. Methods A quasi-experimental, interrupted time-series design. The study analyzed press coverage of police legitimacy before and during the course of the Second Intifada in Israel between the years 1998 and 2007. Examination of the coverage of legitimacy was based on the framework of Tyler's process-based model, which evaluated data from 2,600 press reports culled from three major dailies in Israel. Results The first period of the Second Intifada was found to have a significant and positive effect on the coverage of police legitimacy. Following the outbreak of the Second Intifada, there was a significant increase in media portrayals of public trust and confidence in the police. Conclusions The study provides new insight into the role of the media in shaping legitimacy under conditions of high terrorism threats. The results suggest that in the face of the highest level of terrorist attacks, the media stress coverage of public trust. Moreover, by underscoring the effectiveness of the police in counterterrorism policing, and in some cases even portraying the police force as heroic, the media reinforce police legitimacy. Future research is needed in this field. Expanding the analysis to additional variables such as the government view of the police and police spokespeople's strategies will enhance existing knowledge on the media coverage of police legitimacy
Police and media relations in an era of freedom of information
Policing & Society, 2009
Changes to how police forces in England and Wales are working to manage their public image in an environment of heightened accountability and transparency are explored. The locus of control of information shaping the portrayal of the police in the news media is discussed, as is the impact of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. The findings from case studies of two police forces in the East Midlands are reported. The case studies indicate that UK police forces are becoming increasingly proactive, strategic and professionalized in their use of the news media. For their part, the media are dependent on the news 'fed' to them on a regular basis by police press relations units. Nevertheless, thanks in particular to their use of the FOIA 2000, the media continue to play a role as independent watchdog and reporter of police activity.
Damage control : Media representation and responses to police deviance
1995
This paper examines the processes and outcomes of the negotiation of public discourse between the police and the media when police organisations are called to account in public scandals. Using the 1992 television documentary Cop It Sweet as a case study, the paper describes the problems of police/Aborigines relations exposed in the film, the reaction within the police hierarchy, the attempt at damage control and the subsequent repair work carried out in tenns of improving police/minority relations. The role of the media as an agent of criminal justice reform and a mechanism for demanding police accountability is discussed in this context. It will be argued that scandals force police organisations to provide a credible account that deviance is under control. The consequences of scandals depend on the nature of the police organisation and its commitment to reform. Public discourse in relation to police deviance may provide an opportunity for police reformers to further their reform ag...
This article analyses the changing nature of news media-police chief relations. Building on previous theoretical work (Greer and McLaughlin, 2010), we use the concepts of ‘inferential structure’ (Lang and Lang, 1955) and ‘hierarchy of credibility’ (Becker, 1967) to examine former Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) Commissioner Sir Ian Blair’s ‘trial by media’. We focus on the collective and overwhelmingly hostile journalistic reaction to Blair’s declaration in 2005 that, (a) the news media are guilty of ‘institutional racism’ in their coverage of murders, and (b) the murders of two ten-year-olds in Soham, 2001, received undue levels of media attention. A sustained period of symbolic media annihilation in the British mainstream press established a dominant ‘inferential structure’ that defined Blair as the ‘Gaffe-Prone Commissioner’: his position in the ‘hierarchy of credibility’ was shredded, and his Commissionership de-legitimised. The unprecedented resignation of an MPS Commissioner is situated within the wider context of ‘attack journalism’ and the rising news media ‘politics of outrage’.
Just Authority? Public trust and police legitimacy
1. Social and moral connections 2. Design of the study FOREWORD This well written and engaging volume articulates and empirically supports a new and innovative approach to policing based upon the goal of creating and maintaining the belief among members of the public that police authority is legitimate. In so doing the authors are providing a new framework for thinking about the goals of policing, one that emphasizes how police policies and practices are experienced within policed communities. Rather than concentrating authority over policing decisions within higher level policing authorities, and rather than evaluating police effectiveness in terms of success in combating particular forms of crime defined by police professionals, this approach suggests that the community needs to play a strong role in defining its problems and in determining how the police should address those problems.