Social Media & Policing Professor Peter Kawalek Manchester Business School, University of...

Social Media & Policing

Professor Peter KawalekManchester Business School,

University of Manchester,Manchester M15 6PB.

peter.kawalek@mbs.ac.uk

2011

• The Arab Spring• Mexico• Slogans & Logos in Spain & UK.• The Ideas/ Theory• The Issues• What to do about the questions

Social Media & Policing

Practical & tactical issues abound, but there are also very profound issues about the nature of the society that is emerging & the operation of the Police within it.

Communication is the structure that forms society. Manuel Castells.

The “Arab Spring”

Tunisia

Tunisia

Egypt

Syria

Mexico

#verfollow for the coastal city of Veracruz.

A word-count analysis of more than a quarter of a million tweets using the hashtag #mtyfollow over the course of nine months (11/2010 to 8/2011) shows how hashtags are used as a common resource. People hook into the hashtag to "report" ("REPORTAN", in Spanish), issue warnings ("precaución", "cuidado") and request confirmation ("confirmar") about shootings ("balacera", "detonaciones" "balazos") in certain areas of the city ("zona", "Cumbres", "Av", "Sada"). You can also see the popularity of some user handles in the messages. Together, people such as @trackmty, @AnaRent and @cicmty, have more than 85,000 followers and 65,000 tweets. These people have become reliable information news sources.

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_hashtag_narcocensorship.php

Child Kidnap Rumours

CNN Report

Slogans & Logos in Spain & UK

Cavendish Press

Ideas & Theory

1. Transaction Costs2. Network Theory3. Attention Poverty4. Latency & Legitimacy

Transaction Costs

• Transaction Costs– The whole cost of acquisition of something.• Price• Search costs / knowing of its existence. • Comparison

– Relates to Castells’ ideas of network constructions of power

Network Theory

• Network Theory– Inclusion / Exclusion– Coordination through standards– Assignment of meaning

Network Theory

• Network Theory– Inclusion / Exclusion• The gatekeeping function of the media • “What was not mentioned in the New York Times,

didn’t exist.” Castells. (or BBC, News International etc)

– Coordination through standards– Assignment of meaning

Network Theory

• Network Theory– Inclusion / Exclusion

• The gatekeeping function of the media • “What was not mentioned in the New York Times, didn’t

exist.” Castells. (or BBC, News International etc)

– Coordination through standards– Assignment of meaning

• “Shaping the mind is more effective than torturing the bodies”– Manuel Castells

Network Theory

• Network Theory– Inclusion / Exclusion

• The gatekeeping function of the media • “What was not mentioned in the New York Times, didn’t exist.”

Castells. (or BBC, News International etc)

– Coordination through standards• Can be technical e.g. use of Blackberry, SMS etc., but standards

are also cultural.

– Assignment of meaning• “Shaping the mind is more effective than torturing the bodies”

– Manuel Castells

Network Theory

Assignment of meaning• Any media is concerned with meanings.

• So, in the social network to which he belongs, does this image make him more a hero or more a villain?

• Attention Poverty

• Attention Poverty“...in an information-rich world, the wealth of

information means a dearth of something else: a scarcity of whatever it is that information consumes. What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it” (Simon 1971)

• No longer a society huddled around the sofa, BBC, ITV or down the local.

• Now, an infinite number of media products, channels, flavours, justifications, ideologies, truths, half-truths, misrepresentations & edits.

The Issues

• Crime in a society where messages pass more quickly and less predictably than before

• Crime & anonymity on the net• Electronic surveillance• A society based on technical cohesion rather than

ideology or cultural cohesion (e.g. Apple & Blackberry as platforms rather than politics, religion or shared experience)– A society with neither pulpit, nor t.v.

• Scaling up / scaling down – social issues as wildfire (adapting an idea of John Arquila)

• Transparency (of citizens, of officers)

People can earn money from You Tube

Researching & DefiningThe Issues.

• Agenda-setting

• Working out what the issues are

• Working on solutions, from germination through to practice.

• Lab

• Action Research

• Ethnography

• Mixed Methods

• Police / academics / students /community – mutual learning & unlearning

Social Media & Policing

Practical & tactical issues abound, but there are also very profound issues about the nature of the society that is emerging & the operation of the Police within it.

Twitter: @kawalekFacebook: I’m a conscientious objector.Email: peter.kawalek@mbs.ac.uk