Use of Social Media in The Police Force in Queensland Report

Introduction

Social media is a fast growing type of technology used for social interaction. It entails the use of internet based and mobile technologies for effective dialogue. It is capable of reaching a large number of the target audience at a short period of time.

Though most of the social networking was an attraction to the younger generation, the audience using it has expanded to include both the younger and the older generation. It has been used over the years to communicate effective strategies and it is cost effective.

Use Of Social Media By Queensland Government Departments

We are all aware of the tragedy that hit the state of Queensland in the period December 2010-January 2011 when a series of floods. The floods which created a huge disaster left more than 35 people dead, some missing and created damages worth over 30 billion dollars.

The horrific scenes will forever be embedded in the minds of many people who witnessed the horrifying incident. People turned to digital channels to follow the happenings of the rescuing team and the effect of the flooding in the affected areas (Big Click 2011).

Facebook and twitter were the most common social tools that people used to convey information to their friends online and which such information was relayed in a short span of time to millions of people all over the world.

However, the Queensland Police force was forced to step in due to misinformation that circulated in these social networks (Atfield 2011).

One outstanding false rumor that circulated in the social networks around this time was that Wivenhoe Dam was about to breach, an information that caused much distress to many people. This incidence forced the Queensland police service to step in and open a Facebook site to effectively relay the correct information to the citizens and other people who were following the happenings worldwide (Computer World 2011).

They successfully managed to communicate to dozens of people and this helped to ease tension that had gripped the residents over the spread of false information.

The focus of my presentation is therefore to show the importance of social networking as a tool of communication in the government departments in Queensland State especially the Queensland Police Service. It further gives examples of possible social media that can be adopted for the sake of communicating effectively the state messages to the citizens.

The Power Of Social Media: Katrina Vs Haiti Disasters

Before we discuss the reasons why social media should be adopted in the police media in response of disasters, it is very important at this stage to find out the impact social media has in times of disasters. Katrina and Haiti are two scenarios that can explain this particular point. In the year 2005, when Hurricane Katrina hit the Louisiana coast killing more than 1500 people, social media had not been born (Brunsma and Picou 2007).

There was no Facebook or Twitter to pass the information of what was happening to millions of people following the event. Instead, people relied on Televisions, radios and print media to get the news. The response needed was slow and a lot of anxiety was created with a lot of people waiting for the media to report any breaking news.

The second scenario presents the devastating earthquake that recently hit Haiti in 2010. Millions of people logged into various social media such as twitter and Facebook to follow the events as they happened.

Other social media such as Youtube relayed video clips of recent images and happenings during the earthquake. A Facebook page was set up by Red-Cross appealing for help for Haiti victims and more than 3 billion dollars was raised in less than a day.

The debate of adopting social media in government offices heated up after the Haiti incidence with many people arguing that social media had indeed transformed the cycle of news. The speed of response in the two disaster scenarios above is clear proof of how powerful social media has become.

Advantages and Disadvantages Associated With the Use Of Social Media

Before the disaster hit the State of Queensland, the use of social media in the government departments was unheard phenomenon. The mode of communication form used to pass information was ineffective and mostly landed in wrong hands.

The disaster however has changed the belief and with the above disaster scenario in mind, it will be important to state the benefits of introducing use of social media in the police force. What then are the benefits?

• Cost effective – using the social media as a mode of effective communication will save lots of state money as it is very cheap. It is cheaper than other tools of communication such as telephones.
• Greater reach – it has the capability of reaching many people at the same time to convey the intended message.
• Engage community participation – the police will be able to engage the community in a message sent by a social media tool. An example is a delicate topic put up on Facebook as an update which allows the members to respond.

Besides the benefits, social media can also be associated with some disadvantages if adopted by Queensland Police Service. Some of the disadvantages include (Fearn-Banks 1996):

• Privacy issues – Social networking sites has private issues such as cyber criminals hacking into accounts and getting access to private information.
• Time – Social media networking tends to take up a lot of time and effort as it involves updating the group status often and responding to the issues rose by the members of the public.
• Trust – members of the public are always paranoid when it comes to information from the police department. By using social media, the department needs to earn the trust of the public slowly but firmly.

The Preferred Social Media To Be Adopted In The Police Department

Having discussed the benefits and disadvantages of adopting social media in the police department, it is important to highlight the social media that should be adopted. There are three social networking websites that should be reviewed and implemented. This is the use of Twitter, Facebook and Flick’r.

Use of Twitter Social Networking Site

This site allows for instant messages which are known as tweets of not more than 140 characters. This is actually the most ideal site to rely breaking news to the world and any other important information (Riordan 2011). If it had been adopted by the police force during the flood disaster, the members of the public would have been able to be kept up to date with the happenings thus preventing the spread of false rumors.

An example of a police department that has already adopted use of Twitter is the Bellevue, Nebraska Police Department where the officers tweet messages using their real identity and the message is relayed on the homepage for public viewing. In cases of emergencies, they use Nixel to send out alerts through Twitter.

Reason For Adopting It Into The Force

Due to its rapid growth, people have turned it to a policing forum and it will not be surprising to find that most followers, as they are called on Twitter are already discussing the force. The public comments and opinions may prove to be very helpful to make vital decisions.

The discussion forum will also create a comfortable atmosphere to air different delicate views that the public may be unwilling to speak out in other instances. This is due to the fact that this type of social media is very informal and feels more like a social gathering forum.

One major pitfall is that a message sent cannot be deleted easily. This means that if the force sends a wrong message that is not intended for public viewing, it will spread very fast as others will be bound to copy the comments and post them. However, this is not an alarming pitfall as it can be easily controlled and maintained.

Use Of Facebook Networking Site

With the highest number of social networking fans, this will be the ideal social media to join due to the huge following. It involves the crowd in a discussion through a status update that the Facebook user keeps on updating and responding to the comments posted in response.

Hence, Facebook will act as a good forum to discuss public issues and elicit all kinds of responses from the public that will help the force gauge their reaction towards a specific issue.

The Vancouver Police Department in British Columbia is a good example of a police force that has already adopted the Facebook social networking. Their social page helps the followers to be kept up to date with the recent happenings in the world of crimes, activities taking place in the force and even recruitment news.

Reason For Adopting It Into The Force

Just like Twitter, Facebook also acts a great forum to discuss issues with the public and in doing so will get to have the feedback they can use for major decisions. Messages posted on Facebook reach so many people at once through status updates that should be updated from time to time. Incase of a crisis, the force can be able to know the public’s reactions and how well they are handling the situation.

Most information that spread during the flood crisis were through Facebook status updates and the police got to know about it when panic had already gripped most people (Hearn 2011).

The major pitfall that is associated with Facebook is the fact that a status update can easily be misinterpreted and in most cases evoke emotional reactions from members of the public through the comments. This however can be avoided by reviewing the status update being posted.

Use Of Flick’r Networking Site

This site allows the users to upload photos or images and videos for other users to view.

Adopting Social Media Into The Police Department

For the technology to work and become integrated into the force, the police should undergo training on how to use the social media technology for purpose of interaction with the community. This will ensure that the technology is not abused and that it serves the purpose it is intended to.

A social media course is very important as the department force in charge will be taken under intensive training on how to adopt the new technology of Facebook, Twitter and Flick’r. The following is a simple concept outlining the importance of students taking a social media course to pass information to the community.

Using the above concept map, it is important to show an example of how social media training in the police force would have played a vital role during the flood crisis.

Social media course serves the following three main purposes:

• Equips the student with adequate knowledge of use of social media tools – possessing the know how tool of using Facebook, Twitter and Flick’r would have reduced tension in the community as many people were passing false information through these three main social media tools.
• Raises issues of the community – through application of suggested media tools, the police force would have been in a better position to relate with the community by engaging them in a discussion. This would have enabled the police to gather information that was circulating at the moment, read the moods and emotions of the community and be able to come up with a solution before hand to calm the community members.
• Requires individual participation – active inquiry and individual participation would have helped to build more trust in the police force during the flood crisis hence calming the affected community.

Criticism Of Social Media As An Important Tool

Numerous arguments have been put forward with how social media act as a faster mean of relaying information. It has also been argued that major response can be achieved due to use of social media. But how true is this information?

As much as social media tools are viewed as important in times of disaster, this is not the case following the Pakistan flood disaster which has claimed over 2000 lives and more than 15 million people either homeless or injured.

In comparison between the Haiti Facebook page and the Pakistan page, the Haiti disaster has a following of over 40,000 people liking the page while the Pakistan page has just recently hit the mark of 2500 people. It is important to note that the two are recent events that took place when social media was so much in use.

It has also been claimed that whereas Haiti received donations of over 500 million dollars within a short period following their Twitter and Facebook help pages, Pakistan received much less donations. It is not clear why there is much difference in the two scenarios and probably, it can be argued that in some disasters, social media is not very important.

Another angle of this argument is failure by the state or the citizens to incorporate these tools to relay information as it happens. Either way, it creates confusion on how important is the use of social media and if so, it means that people choose which disaster to take seriously.

Implementation Of A Workable Social Media Policies

For social media to become a workable solution there are important steps that need to be followed so as to successfully adopt the policy in the police department.

The presentation has already outlined the importance of adopting the social media in our police force with workable examples of the same tools working in other police forces departments such as the Bellevue, Nebraska Police Department and The Vancouver Police Department in British Columbia.

• Strategy development – we have already come up with the social media tools that we would wish to be adopted in the police force that is, use of Facebook, Twitter and Flick’r. A strategy should then be developed as the first step of implementation to determine several factors such as the hours to be allotted for working on this tool, the interrelationship of the adopted social media tools and finally the timeline to roll out the project.
• Create a Departmental Policy – social media policy should be adopted and adhered to due to legal risks and in that case, all social media sites have policies which even a police department should agree to the terms when joining the site. It is therefore important for the department to create a departmental policy to outline and regulate the information appearing on their site.
• Assign staff – there should be people from the police on the standby concerned with handling and updating the social media information at all times. In most cases, the community members will post questions that need to be addressed and therefore, it is necessary for the police force who have already been trained on how to handle the social media tools to be always available. Content flow of information has to be maintained.

Conclusion

Social media is an important technology and its usage is growing rapidly throughout the world. The government department will enhance their spread of information more effectively if they adopt the social media technology. The implementation may take a while but when fully integrated, it will be a very important tool to respond to disasters.

Millions of people are using social media as a tool of communication and therefore the government should see the urgent need of introducing it to all the departments for effective communication. By so doing, the government will get to know what is going on in the outside world hence assisting in its administration.

References

Atfield, C. (2011) Rumor has it wrong in flood crisis. Brisbane Times. Web.

Big Click (2011) Social Media and The Queensland Flood. Web.

Brunsma, D and Picou, S (2007) The Sociology of Katrina: perspectives on a modern catastrophe. New York: Rowman & Littlefield.

Computer World (2011) Google launches Queensland Flood Crisis Response Site. Web.

Fearn-Banks, K (1996) Crisis Communication: A Casebook Approach. New York: Routlledge.

Hearn, L. (2011) Hunt for Missing Flood Victims Goes Online. Web.

Riordan, K. (2011) Police Tweet on the Beat During Flood Crisis. ABC News. Web.