Law Enforcement Framing on Social Media
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Law enforcement framing on social media A comparative frame analysis of the police forces in Sweden and China and their presence on social media services Facebook and Sina Weibo Niklas Jonsson Westerlund Supervisor Göran Svensson Department of Informatics and Media Master Programme in Social Sciences, Digital Media and Society Spring 2016 Abstract In less than a decade, social media has become one of the most important tools for interpersonal communication in the developed world. Social media also provide a platform for companies, organizations and government institutions to disseminate information and interact with users. This thesis examines the use of social media by law enforcement agencies in Sweden and China by looking at Facebook and Sina Weibo respectively. The study has used a qualitative content analysis as its method and frame analysis as its theoretical framework. The purpose of the thesis has been to examine how the police frame their content on social media, and whether the framing differs between the two countries’ law enforcement agencies. The findings suggest that the police in Sweden and China frame their content differently; the Swedish police frame their posts with emotions, and appeal to readers to be responsible citizens to a higher degree than their Chinese counterparts do. The Chinese police (Beijing Public Security Bureau) frame their posts with more authoritative language, although this is contrasted with their use of frames that are humorous as well. However, both agencies tend to frame their content in a neutral way most of the time. This suggests that both agencies put an emphasis on disseminating neutral information for a variety of different topics, rather than framing their content for a specific purpose. Keywords: Social media, frame analysis, qualitative content analysis, Sina Weibo, Facebook, law enforcement, police, Public Security Bureau, 死哪微博, 平安北京, 金盾工程. 2 Acknowledgements While writing this thesis, I was lucky to receive outstanding help from two people in particular. Firstly, I would like to thank my supervisor Göran Svensson for his continuous engagement and helpful comments and suggestions throughout the semester. Secondly, I would like to thank my wonderful translator 小胡胡. Because without you, this thesis would not have been written. In addition, I want to give a special thanks to Uppsala University for sending me to Peking University to study Chinese, and to all my classmates in the Digital Media and Society class of 2014. 3 Table of contents Abstract .............................................................................................................................................................. 2 Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................................................ 3 Table of contents ................................................................................................................................................ 4 List of figures ...................................................................................................................................................... 6 1. Introduction ................................................................................................................................................... 7 1.2 Research Purpose ..................................................................................................................................... 9 1.3 Research Questions ................................................................................................................................ 10 1.4 Research limitations ............................................................................................................................... 10 1.5 Thesis outline .......................................................................................................................................... 11 2. Background................................................................................................................................................... 13 2.1 The dawn of social media and web 2.0 ................................................................................................... 13 2.2 Mass media and Internet ........................................................................................................................ 14 2.3 The early days of the Internet ................................................................................................................. 16 2.4 The Silicon Valley’s of Sweden and China ................................................................................................ 17 2.5 The rise of social media use by public authorities in Sweden and China ................................................... 18 2.5 Previous research.................................................................................................................................... 19 3. Framing theory ............................................................................................................................................. 22 3.1 Framing defined ..................................................................................................................................... 22 3.2 Framing theory in social media research ................................................................................................. 24 3.3 Framing in China ..................................................................................................................................... 25 3.4 Critique of framing theory....................................................................................................................... 27 3.5 Framing theory as a conceptual framework ............................................................................................ 27 4. Methodology ................................................................................................................................................ 30 4.1 Qualitative research defined ................................................................................................................... 30 4.1 Qualitative content analysis as a research method ................................................................................. 31 4.2 Defining the data selection ..................................................................................................................... 31 4.3 Coding, reliability and validity ................................................................................................................. 34 4.4 Ethical considerations ............................................................................................................................. 36 4 5. Analysis ........................................................................................................................................................ 37 5.1 Frames defined ....................................................................................................................................... 37 5.2 Identifying frames................................................................................................................................... 38 5.3 Christmas and Spring Festival posts analyzed ......................................................................................... 43 5.4 Violence and crime posts analyzed .......................................................................................................... 48 5.5 Holiday posts analyzed ........................................................................................................................... 54 5.6 Organizational posts analyzed ................................................................................................................ 61 5.7 Summary ................................................................................................................................................ 67 6. Conclusions................................................................................................................................................... 71 6.1 Research questions revisited ................................................................................................................... 71 6.2 Frames used by the two agencies ........................................................................................................... 71 6.3 Differences in framing............................................................................................................................. 72 6.4 Discussion ............................................................................................................................................... 73 6.4 Future research....................................................................................................................................... 74 Bibliography ..................................................................................................................................................... 76 Appendix .......................................................................................................................................................... 84 Swedish police SP#1 – 44 .............................................................................................................................. 84 Public Security Bureau PSB#1 – 44 ...............................................................................................................