RT Article
T1 Memetic copaganda: understanding the humorous turn in police image work
JF Crime, media, culture
VO 17
IS 3
SP 305
OP 326
A1 Wood, Mark A.
A2 McGovern, Alyce
LA English
YR 2021
UL https://krimdok.uni-tuebingen.de/Record/1856531201
AB Recently, numerous police organisations have made a strategic decision to employ humour on social media, via memes and other comical posts, to increase community engagement with their content and manage their public image. One key example of this practice comes from New South Wales Police, a state-based Australian police force whose self-described ?meme strategy? led to considerable increases in the organisation?s social media following. Through analysing the content of NSW Police?s memetic copaganda, in this article we unpack this approach to police public relations, detailing its rationale and implications. Police on social media, we argue, must address two very different regimes of visibility: ?policing?s new visibility?, characterised by the increased visibility of police indiscretion as a result of citizen-produced content, and a ?threat of invisibility?, in which the visibility of police-produced content on social media is always provisional, never assured. We consequently argue that the humorous turn in police image work represents a countermeasure to not only policing?s new visibility but also the ?threat of invisibility? facing police-produced content on social media.
K1 Copaganda
K1 Internet memes
K1 Digital criminology
K1 Humour
K1 Police Legitimacy
K1 Social Media
K1 Visual Criminology
DO 10.1177/1741659020953452