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Police Use of Social Media As Bureaucratic Propaganda: Comments on State Violence and Law Enforcement Use of Social Media in 2020

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Police Use of Social Media As Bureaucratic Propaganda: Comments on State Violence and Law Enforcement Use of Social Media in 2020 VOLUME 22, ISSUE 2, PAGES 25 – 32 (2021) Criminology, Criminal Justice, Law & Society E-ISSN 2332-886X Available online at https://scholasticahq.com/criminology-criminal-justice-law-society/ Police Use of Social Media as Bureaucratic Propaganda: Comments on State Violence and Law Enforcement Use of Social Media in 2020 Christopher J. Schneider Brandon University A B S T R A C T A N D A R T I C L E I N F O R M A T I O N Police are recognized as primary producers of social order, and social media factor into the process of gaining the co- operation of citizens in ways that serve the interests of police. In this short commentary piece, I provide an overview of police use of social media and highlight some recent thematic examples from 2020 to illustrate how police use of social media is consistent with Altheide and Johnson’s (1980) concept of “bureaucratic propaganda,” the aim of which is to sustain the appearance of institutional legitimacy in the form of official information. Article History: Keywords: Received April 9th, 2021 police, social media, propaganda, bureaucratic propaganda, social control Received in revised form June 12th, 2021 th Accepted July 9 , 2021 © 2021 Criminology, Criminal Justice, Law & Society and The Western Society of Criminology Hosting by Scholastica. All rights reserved. Corresponding author: Christopher J. Schneider, PhD, Brandon University 270 18th Street, Brandon, Manitoba, R7A 6A9, Canada Email: [email protected] 2 SCHNEIDER The year 2020 has been called the year of logic of social media is very much the opposite - non- protests. The story of the protests begins on social hierarchical, bottom-up, and decentralized (Schneider, media on May 25, 2020 – the day George Floyd, an 2016). unarmed African American, was senselessly murdered Strategic police use of conventional media by Minneapolis Police officers. A citizen-recorded remains consistent with the existing organizational video of Floyd’s death went viral online. Public police structure where a designated spokesperson (i.e., outrage quickly followed, prompting worldwide press officer) officially speaks on behalf of the protests against racialized police violence that lasted organization. Similarly, is the circumstance with throughout much of the summer. Hundreds of informational resources like police blogs and blotters instances of police violence occurring during the that more typically provide the public with “cursory protests across 2020 were documented on video and information on crime incidents, such as the type of shared widely on social media. crime, the defendant, the victim, and the location” In one instance, video surfaced online of a (Chermak, 1995, p. 27). However, the more recent use 75-year-old man peacefully protesting who was and incorporation of interactive social media has violently shoved to the ground by Buffalo Police in altered strategic elements of policing that compel the riot gear. Officers were seen walking past his institution to confront and manage the decentralized motionless body as he lay on the ground bleeding from nature of social media. his head. In another circumstance, police in New York Police institutional activities on social media City drove their squad cruisers into a crowd of must be carefully organized to fit within the dominant protestors. The video of this instance was also widely structural logic of each platform (e.g., 280 characters shared online. These and other videos documenting in a tweet on Twitter or short videos of less than 60 police violence were spotlighted in national news seconds on TikTok). Social media platforms are each reports and shared extensively across social media. oriented to different media formats, such as images for Much of the attention to the intersection of policing Instagram or videos for YouTube. While users can and social media in 2020 focused on citizen recordings post text, images, and videos across numerous of police misconduct. But what about police use of platforms, how users both orient and perform on each social media during this period? format differs (Schneider, 2019a). Taking the perfect Police are recognized as primary producers selfie, for instance, might be ideal for Instagram but of social order, and social media factor into the process less so for YouTube. Sharing emotive content of gaining the co-operation of citizens in ways that (language, photos, and videos) on social media drives serve the interests of police (Ericson, 1982; Schneider, increases in followers (i.e., audience), likes (i.e., 2021; see also Kudla & Parnaby, 2018; O’Connor & endorsements), the sharing of content and the ability Zaidi, 2020). In this commentary, I provide a short to go viral, and the generation of user comments, all overview of police use of social media and highlight consistent with the logic of social media. Police use some thematic examples from 2020 to illustrate law the immediate and emotive logic of social media to enforcement use of social media that is consistent with meet contemporary strategic objectives of law Altheide and Johnson’s (1980) concept of enforcement, with stressed importance upon media “bureaucratic propaganda,” the aim of which is to performance including status updates and emotive sustain the appearance of institutional legitimacy in posts (see also Schneider, 2019a). the form of official information. The story of public-facing police use of social media begins on MySpace in late 2005 at a time of Police and Social Media increased (and exaggerated, see boyd, 2014) news media attention over online sexual predation. Early In my 2016 book Policing and Social Media: police use of platforms like MySpace included officers Social Control in an Era of New Media, I suggest that “friending” minors on the site in a proactive official the public facing police use of social media on sites police capacity in an effort to ward off would-be like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, and, more predators since a police officer would be publicly recently, on platforms like TikTok, has altered displayed as a “friend” on a minor’s viewable list of institutional police practices to include new ways of MySpace friends. By the end of 2006, police began conditioning the public, self-promotion, and the using MySpace as a tool to assist in criminal general expansion of social control (Schneider, 2016). investigations. MySpace was used at this time often in Law enforcement use of social media is consistent the absence of department protocols or policies that with the logic of social media even though the outlined best practices for law enforcement. As public organizational logics of these institutions are at odds. attention shifted away from MySpace, police Police organizations are hierarchical in structure, top- departments started launching official profiles on then down and highly centralized, whereas the structural rival site Facebook. Police profiles appeared in greater Criminology, Criminal Justice, Law & Society – Volume 22, Issue 2 POLICE USE OF SOCIAL MEDIA AS BUREAUCRATIC PROPAGANDA 3 numbers on Facebook from around 2010 onward, with maintain and reinforce an outward public appearance department policies following as a result in order to of law enforcement interest in the expressed concerns reduce organizational risks to police (see, e.g., of some community members, particularly in response Schneider, 2019b). During this time, other platforms, to grievances aired by Black Lives Matter and its notably micro-blogging site Twitter, also experienced supporters. As a thematic example, we might consider growth in official use by police agencies. Twitter a June 5, 2020, tweet by Mark Saunders, former Chief remains very popular with law enforcement primarily of the Toronto Police Service (TPS), one of the largest because the logic of Twitter is modeled after dispatch municipal police departments in North America: “My systems already familiar to police (Schneider, 2016). Command and I met protesters today and we took a During this growth period, police mostly used social knee. We see you and we are listening […] We have media in an investigative capacity and to generate and to all stay in this together to make change.” The solicit crime tips and share safety information. official TPS tweet was accompanied by three Police use of social media has since expanded photographs including one with Saunders kneeling considerably. In 2014, police agencies started using with protesters. Similar tweets were shared by other Snapchat in an effort to connect with young people. law enforcement like the LAPD. The LAPD, while More recently, police have taken to TikTok, one of the active on social media like Twitter, was largely absent most popular social media platforms, especially from the popular platform TikTok having posted just among teenagers. Most police agencies do not have one video in 2020 on March 7, two months prior to official department TikTok accounts (exceptions George Floyd’s murder. include the Los Angeles Police Department [LAPD], Tweets like these examples and other which launched an account in 2018 posting its first similarly shared police materials on social media video in December). Police use of TikTok is mostly across 2020 are consistent with image work strategies limited to what individual officers unofficially post intended to humanize and personalize officers in order often using hashtags (#), first introduced as an official to make police appear more relatable and trustworthy. feature on Twitter in 2009. The use of a hashtag Social media posts that are
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