Identifying Strategies to Market the Police in the News (May 2001)

摘要

This study presents the results from a national survey of public information officers and media personnel in large sized cities. We examine police-media relations in two important areas. First, we investigate the day-to-day interactions of police public information officers and news personnel. We were interested in their evaluatieon of the quality of this relationship, their reliance on each other to accomplish organizational objectives, and their perceptions of the media's coverage of crime. Second, we identify the strategies used by law enforcement agencies to market community policing initiatives to the public. We discuss the strategies agencies use to promote community policing, whether these efforts are effective, and how media workers view community policing. We have also analyzed a sample of newspaper articles about community policing to examine how it is presented in the news. We examine whether community policing is an important news topic. In addition, we identify the types of community policing programs presented to the public, whether community involvement is discussed in these articles, and what sources media workers rely on when presenting these stories to the public.