Abstract
The use of social media as an investigative tool is widespread by law enforcement agencies. In this article, we review the public requests for investigative assistance posted by different law enforcement agencies across the nation to determine what Facebook reactions are associated with additional shares. Using like, love, sad, wow, angry, and funny clicks as proxies for the emotions community members report feeling, the goal is to provide empirically supported advice to law enforcement agencies about how to set the tone of their requests to reach the widest audience, measured by the number of times the post has been shared. When controlling for the type of crime listed, we found a positive relationship between the number of funny or sad clicks and the number of shares, while those posts that elicit angry clicks were shared fewer times. The strength of the relationships and the implications for law enforcement messaging are discussed.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
References
Alhabash S, McAlister AR, Lou C, Hagerstrom A (2015) From clicks to behaviors: the mediating effect of intentions to like, share, and comment on the relationship between message evaluations and offline behavioral intentions. J Interact Advert 15(2):82–96. https://doi.org/10.1080/15252019.2015.1071677
Bangor, Maine Police Department Facebook Page (2016) Retrieved from https://www.facebook.com/bangormainepolice/
Bonsón E, Royo S, Ratkai M (2015) Citizens’ engagement on local governments’ Facebook sites. An empirical analysis: the impact of different media and content types in Western Europe. Gov Inf Q 32(1):52–62. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.giq.2014.11.001
Brainard L, Edlins M (2015) Top 10 US municipal police departments and their social media usage. Am Rev Public Adm 45(6):728–745. https://doi.org/10.1177/0275074014524478
Building your presence with Facebook pages: a guide for police departments. (2017). Retrieved from http://www.iacpsocialmedia.org/Portals/1/documents/FacebookPagesGuide.pdf
Burger JM, Messian N, Patel S, del Prado A, Anderson C (2004) What a coincidence! The effects of incidental similarity on compliance. Personal Soc Psychol Bull 30:35–43
Cameron AC, & Trivedi PK (1998) Econometric society monographs: regression analysis of count data. Cambridge, GB: Cambridge University Press
Chermak S, Weiss A (2005) Maintaining legitimacy using external communication strategies: an analysis of police-media relations. J Crim Just 33(5):501–512. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcrimjus.2005.06.001
Child abduction response plan, an investigative guide for law enforcement (2014) Federal Bureau of Investigation
Cialdini RB (2009) Influence: science and practice. Pearson, Boston, MA
Craun SW, Bourke ML (2014) The use of humor to cope with secondary traumatic stress. J Child Sex Abuse 23(7):840–852. https://doi.org/10.1080/10538712.2014.949395
Craun SW, Bourke ML (2015) Is laughing at the expense of victims and offenders a red flag? Humor and secondary traumatic stress. J Child Sexual Abuse 24(5):592–602. https://doi.org/10.1080/10538712.2015.1042187
Davis EF, Alves AA, & Sklansky DA (2014) Social media and police leadership: lessons from Boston. Retrieved from https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/244760.pdf
Dirikx A, Van Den Bulck J (2014) Media use and the process-based model for police cooperation. Br J Criminol 54:344–365. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjc/azt063
Ellis J, McGovern A (2016) The end of symbiosis? Australia police–media relations in the digital age. Polic Soc 26(8):944–962. https://doi.org/10.1080/10439463.2015.1016942
Fu PW, Wu CC, Cho YJ (2017) What makes users share content on facebook? Compatibility among psychological incentive, social capital focus, and content type. Comput Hum Behav 67:23–32. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2016.10.010
Godin S (2012) All marketers tell stories: Penguin Publishing Group
Gruner, C. R. (1985). Advice to the beginning speaker on using humor—what the research tells us
Internaional Association of Chiefs of Police (2015) Social media survey results. Retrieved from http://www.iacpsocialmedia.org/Portals/1/documents/FULL%202015%20Social%20Media%20Survey%20Results.pdf
Lieberman JD, Koetzle D, Sakiyama M (2013) Police departments’ use of Facebook. Police Quarterly 16(4):438–462. https://doi.org/10.1177/1098611113495049
Meijer A, Thaens M (2013) Social media strategies: understanding the differences between North American police departments. Gov Inf Q 30(4):343–350. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.giq.2013.05.023
Monahan JL, Murphy ST, Zajonc RB (2000) Subliminal mere exposure: specific, general, and diffuse effects. Psychol Sci 11:462–466
O’Connor CD (2015) The police on Twitter: image management, community building, and implications for policing in Canada. Polic Soc 27:1–14. https://doi.org/10.1080/10439463.2015.1120731
Ready, set, go: creating an engaging social media presence is about more than tools (2013) Retrieved from www.iacpsocialmedia.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/.../ReadySetGo_Accenture-1.pdf
Ruddell R, Jones N (2013) Social media and policing: matching the message to the audience. Safer Communities 12(2):64–70. https://doi.org/10.1108/17578041311315030
Spizman RJ, Miller MK (2013) Plugged-in policing: student perceptions of law enforcement’s use of social media. Appl Psychol Crim Justice 9(2):100–112
Stinson L (2016) Facebook reactions, the totally redesigned like button, is here. Wired Retrieved from https://www.wired.com/2016/02/facebook-reactions-totally-redesigned-like-button/
van de Velde B, Meijer A, Homburg V (2015) Police message diffusion on Twitter: analysing the reach of social media communications. Behav Inform Technol 34(1):4–16. https://doi.org/10.1080/0144929X.2014.942754
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Ethical Statement
This research was reviewed and approved by the FBI Institutional Review Board. No informed consent was obtained due to the secondary data being publicly available.
Conflict of Interest
The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Brunell, K.F., Craun, S.W. & Davis, B. The Relationship Between Facebook Reactions and Sharing Investigative Requests for Assistance. J Police Crim Psych 34, 410–416 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11896-018-9297-6
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11896-018-9297-6