What’s Not to “Like”? University Police Departments’ Facebook Outreach
Disciplines
Criminology and Criminal Justice | Law Enforcement and Corrections | Social Control, Law, Crime, and Deviance
Abstract (300 words maximum)
Community policing has become a cornerstone philosophy in police departments throughout the United States, and the use of social media has the potential to reinforce the bond between community and local law enforcement. The purpose of the current study is to examine how campus police departments utilize Facebook, by analyzing the type of information they convey to the larger campus community. Extending previous research on social media usage among police departments (e.g., Brainard & Edlins, 2015; Dai, He, Tian, Giraldi, & Gu, 2017; Heverin & Zach, 2010), we conduct a content analysis examining Facebook usage among eight college campus police departments in Georgia. Individuals posts are examined from each department from August 1, 2017 to December 31, 2017. Common themes among university police departments’ posts are identified, and potential policy implications from these initial findings are discussed.
Primary Investigator (PI) Name
Beverly Crank
Additional Faculty
Heidi Scherer, Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice, hscherer@kennesaw.edu
What’s Not to “Like”? University Police Departments’ Facebook Outreach
Community policing has become a cornerstone philosophy in police departments throughout the United States, and the use of social media has the potential to reinforce the bond between community and local law enforcement. The purpose of the current study is to examine how campus police departments utilize Facebook, by analyzing the type of information they convey to the larger campus community. Extending previous research on social media usage among police departments (e.g., Brainard & Edlins, 2015; Dai, He, Tian, Giraldi, & Gu, 2017; Heverin & Zach, 2010), we conduct a content analysis examining Facebook usage among eight college campus police departments in Georgia. Individuals posts are examined from each department from August 1, 2017 to December 31, 2017. Common themes among university police departments’ posts are identified, and potential policy implications from these initial findings are discussed.