Police Department Adoption and Deployment of Social Media, 2010-~2015 Paul Geary University of Nevada, Las Vegas, [email protected]
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UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones May 2016 #TheRightToRemainSilent: Police Department Adoption and Deployment of Social Media, 2010-~2015 Paul Geary University of Nevada, Las Vegas, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalscholarship.unlv.edu/thesesdissertations Part of the Criminology Commons, Criminology and Criminal Justice Commons, Mass Communication Commons, and the Public Policy Commons Repository Citation Geary, Paul, "#TheRightToRemainSilent: Police Department Adoption and Deployment of Social Media, 2010-~2015" (2016). UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones. 2670. https://digitalscholarship.unlv.edu/thesesdissertations/2670 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by Digital Scholarship@UNLV. It has been accepted for inclusion in UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones by an authorized administrator of Digital Scholarship@UNLV. For more information, please contact [email protected]. #THERIGHTTOREMAINSILENT: POLICE DEPARTMENT ADOPTION AND DEPLOYMENT OF SOCIAL MEDIA, 2010-2015 By Paul Geary Bachelor of Arts – Political Science University of Massachusetts at Lowell 1991 Master of Arts – Political Science Northeastern University 1994 A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy – Public Affairs School of Environmental and Public Affairs Greenspun College of Urban Affairs The Graduate College University of Nevada, Las Vegas May 2016 Copyright 2016 by Paul Scott Geary All Rights Reserved Dissertation Approval The Graduate College The University of Nevada, Las Vegas April 12, 2016 This dissertation prepared by Paul Geary entitled #TheRightToRemainSilent: Police Department Adoption and Deployment of Social Media, 2010-2015 is approved in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy – Public Affairs School of Environmental and Public Affairs William Sousa, Ph.D. Kathryn Hausbeck Korgan, Ph.D. Examination Committee Co-Chair Graduate College Interim Dean M. Alexis Kennedy Ph.D. Examination Committee Member Paul Traudt, Ph.D. Examination Committee Member David Damore, Ph.D. Graduate College Faculty Representative ii Abstract Police have a complex myriad of ever-changing responsibilities and fluid expectations from the public, and traditional media has performed a largely ambivalent self-appointed oversight and agenda-setting function vis-à-vis police for decades. But in the last five years, the second wave of the first new mass communications medium since the 1940s, social media, has democratized both that oversight function as well as traditional media's agenda-setting ability. Meanwhile, police have been characterized as slow to adapt to change and to adopt new practices in response to a changing world. This work analyzed police agency social media adoption and explained the rate at which United States municipal police adopted social media, the reasons that they did so and for what purpose through the lens of Everett Rogers' diffusion of innovations theory. Based on a survey of police chiefs and administrators with media responsibility, this research demonstrated that police were not slow to adopt social media, but did so in keeping with what diffusion of innovations theory would have predicted. Larger departments (with more resources) adopted social media earlier than smaller departments. Smaller departments used social media somewhat differently than did larger departments, in keeping with the concept of reinvention. Other factors such as age of the chief (which is not an aspect of diffusion of innovations theory but has been demonstrated to be a factor among the general public) and education level of the chief was less explanatory. Chiefs and media professionals at all levels professed an intense distrust of traditional media and a wide belief that social media was an effective tool for both public and non-public facing tasks, but distrust of the media did not necessarily correlate to a more positive view of social media or the degree to which police embraced the inherent interactivity of social media. A longitudinal content analysis of Facebook posts by police departments demonstrated that from 2010 to 2014, a shift from crime news and general iii information to a public relations focus had occurred, and that from 2014 to 2015, perhaps in response to current events such as police-involved shootings and public backlash to that, there was a further shift toward community interest posts at the expense of crime news. Public response as measured by the number of followers and likes of particular posts demonstrated that there was strong resonance to stories posted by police departments that had emotive qualities in 2015. iv Acknowledgements There are a number of people who have had an influence on my intellectual and professional development over the years and I defer to attempt to list all of those people for fear that I leave somebody out. I've been fortunate that there are that many, and please know that I appreciate all of you. Of those who have had a direct positive influence on this work in particular, I would like to thank the members of my dissertation committee who patiently endured my fits and starts in the writing of this work. I would especially like to thank the chair, Dr. Bill Sousa, whose countenance, both academic and pragmatic, was invaluable. I'd like to thank Dr. Paul Traudt, whose intellectual rigor kept me honest. I'd like to thank Dr. Alexis Kennedy, who challenged my beliefs just about every minute that I spent in her class, and Dr. David Damore, who was the first statistics teacher at any level who got me to actually understand statistics. I'd like to thank Professor Dean Bergeron of UMass-Lowell, who 25 years ago planted a seed and prompted me as an undergraduate to think this would be an endeavor both worthwhile and doable. I'd like to thank Michael Armini (currently busy increasing the value of my Master's Degree at Northeastern University as Vice President of Communications) who 10 years ago wisely steered me to pursue the fulfilling perhaps at the expense of the lucrative, and as Emerson said, that has made all the difference. And of course I'd like to thank my partner in life Michael Herwig, who is the only person who endured every day of every facet of the process. Finally I'd like to thank the roughly 240 police professionals who took the time to fill out the survey that comprised a significant segment of this research. The number and thoughtfulness of the responses was truly gratifying. v Dedication To my partner Michael Herwig, without whose encouragement and patience this undertaking never would have happened. vi Table of Contents Abstract ........................................................................................................................................ iii Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................................... v Dedication .................................................................................................................................... vi List of Tables ............................................................................................................................. viii List of Figures ............................................................................................................................... x Chapter 1 Introduction ................................................................................................................ 1 Chapter 2 Literature Review ....................................................................................................... 7 Chapter 3 Theory Application and Methodology ..................................................................... 49 Chapter 4 Findings, Survey....................................................................................................... 70 Chapter 5 Findings, Facebook Post Content Analysis .............................................................. 89 Chapter 6 Discussion .............................................................................................................. 100 Appendix A: Survey Format as Seen by Respondents ............................................................ 126 Appendix B: Survey Questions by Dimension ........................................................................ 135 Appendix C: Narrative Quotient Scale Factors ....................................................................... 137 Appendix D: Methodology Chart of Research Questions and General Hypotheses ............... 139 Appendix E: Facebook Content Analysis Post Coding ........................................................... 141 References ................................................................................................................................. 142 Curriculum Vitae ...................................................................................................................... 173 vii List of Tables Table 1. Police use of Facebook in 2010 ................................................................................. 25 Table 2. Social Media use by 20 U.S. police departments, 2010 and 2013 ............................. 42 Table 3. Survey response statistics .......................................................................................... 65 Table 4. Survey results, use of social media by police departments