Critical Process and Civic Engagement Writing Assignment

Topic Critical Process And Civic Engagement
Social Media and Community Policing
Student’s Name
Institution
Supervisor’s Name
Date
Introduction
In the last decade, there has been a growing trend among the police departments in highly communicating and engaging with the public through the media. The trend has continued to intensify with the development of social media technologies and the social network platform. These platforms are used by the police as part of their efforts to foster strong police relationships CITATION NWa12 \l 1033 (Wain & Joyce, 2012). By doing this, the social media technologies and social media platforms like WhatsApp, Twitter and Facebook have come out as among the most useful tools that the police can use in investigating dangerous incidences and other criminal activities. Through such platforms, the police and other security departments have been able to facilitate a more direct line of communication between the citizens and police CITATION NSa15 \l 1033 (Sachdeva & Kumaraguru, 2015). The developments are not usually surprising given that there is an increase in the professionalization of police social media activities around the world. At the same time, the public has continued to witness the threat of dying of traditional media and other journalism formats. The following essay investigates the impact of social media platforms in community policing by arguing that social media policing has been able to reduce crime rates in the community.
Success of social media policing
With the growing global interest in social media, the police have come to embrace it as they open accounts with sites such as Facebook and Twitter to promote unmediated and direct communication between the public and them. While the large-scale form of media communication between the police and the public has resulted in avoidance of a lot of uncertainties especially in the negotiation of information between media outlets and their journalists CITATION RRu13 \l 1033 (Ruddell & Jones, 2013). The social media has also been able to ensure a strong working relationship between individuals and the groups with whom the traditional forms of mass media would be reaching. This includes the young people, most of whom have never had a positive relationship with them complaining of constant harassment and intimidation. As the police continued to disseminate information through the modern social media platforms, the police have been able to realize a strong citizen and police relationship by enhancing clarity and communication between the two. Platforms such as Facebook and Twitter can embed other aspects of public relations where the police department would use to clarify issues while at the same time building strong relationshipsCITATION DTr \l 1033 (Trottier, vetenskapsområdet, fakulteten, & universitet, 2012).
The social media platform has thus been able to make it possible for the police to display footage, images and other information useful in solving a crime. They are able to seek information and other assistance from the public in investigating a crime, keep the public informed on the police activities, reduce fear, demystify the police department and warn the public on danger. In mos...