“Malmö is not Sweden's Chicago”: Policing and the challenge of creating a sense of safety through social media strategies
, and | Feb 16, 2023
Published Online: Feb 16, 2023
Page range: 44 - 64
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/nor-2023-0003
Keywords
© 2023 Jens Sjöberg et al., published by Sciendo
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
The meaning of safety extends beyond the possibility of risk or harm, because it relates to a subjective understanding of specific objects and situations (Möller et al., 2006), such as in the case of stating “this building is fire safe”, for instance. Ceccato and colleagues (2021) have added that safety is either a subjective feeling or the opposite of risk (noncriminogenic), depending on the research field considered. In a Swedish context, “safety” overlaps with the term “security” and has a more substantial emotional charge because of its subjective denotation (Hermansson, 2018): Safety is related to how we feel (feeling safe), and when safety functions well, it implies that we trust the people and organisations in our surroundings (Hermansson, 2018; Holmberg & Rothstein, 2017; Kunnel, 2021) after weighing risk possibilities and probabilities (Möller et al., 2006). In this article, then, the perspective on safety includes trust as a subjective feeling of not being exposed to risk or harm.
In Sweden, which serves as the case in this article, the overall feeling among citizens of safety is relatively high (Brå, 2021); however, there are problematic instances concerning fear, insecurity, and exposure to crime in the country (Kronqvist, 2021; Sahlin Lilja, 2022). This, in turn, has an impact on citizens’ fear of crime and creates instability, insecurity, and trust issues (Kunnel, 2021). In this respect, Schaap (2021) stated that public trust is vital for police organisations to work properly and effectively. For the Swedish Police, this involves preventing and investigating crime and creating or maintaining safety and public order in society (Palm & Skogersson, 2008; Polisen, 2018). To reduce citizens’ negative feelings related to crimes, insecurity, and instability, the Swedish Police and other Swedish authorities use, by law, the governmental concept of “creating a sense of safety” [trygghetsskapande] to socially foster safety and trust (Government Offices of Sweden, 2017; Holmberg, 2005; Sveriges Riksdag, 1984: §1). Thus, we follow the Swedish Police's definition of creating a sense of safety, which refers to the duty to reduce fear of crime and increase trust and a sense of safety among citizens (Polisen, 2018; Sveriges Riksdag, 1984: §1–2).
What makes creating a sense of safety relevant to examine is that, in contemporary networked society, media channels are essential tools the police use to achieve (and manipulate) the goal of socially constructing a sense of safety. Consequently, police media interactions increasingly seek to control how and what is communicated about the police, which is accomplished by frequent use of social media platforms, on which the police update citizens about their daily work, deliver local information, and interact with the public (Bullock et al., 2021; Holgersson, 2018; Meijer & Torenvlied, 2016; Rolandsson, 2020). The reason for this relates to the affordances of digitalised development that intertwines and converges online and offline worlds through sociotechnical connections via social media platforms (Brennen & Kreiss, 2016; van Dijck, 2013).
Furthermore, social media usage is highly valuable for organisations and their stakeholders to increase expectations of reaching governments and companies alike, raise awareness of services and products, and create dialogue (Dawson, 2018; Meijer & Torenvlied, 2016). Nevertheless, social media can also reproduce social and organisational concerns related to control, power, and reduction of dialogue (Beverungen et al., 2019; Trittin-Ulbrich et al., 2021) or establish a distance between the police and the public (Terpstra et al., 2019); the Swedish Police are not exempt from these issues.
Previous studies on police organisational use of social media have focused on proximity policing and proactive police work (informing), building relationships with citizens, reducing crime, monitoring, and maintaining trust (Bergquist et al., 2015; Holgersson, 2018; Meijer & Torenvlied, 2016; Ralph et al., 2022; Rasmussen, 2017; Rolandsson, 2020; Walsh & O’Connor, 2019; Williams et al., 2018). Bullock and colleagues (2021: 383) emphasised that there “is a pressing need for more research to consider the impact of different forms of police communication on citizen attitudes towards the service”, which paved the way for this study. Specifically, the research gap concerns how police organisations and other public authorities use social media to communicate rather complex understandings of conditions in society, such as a sense of safety. Therefore, the research question is the following:
What are the strategies applied by the Swedish Police through their social media communication to create a sense of safety?
When nearly all organisations are forced to become social media–oriented (Hanafizadeh et al., 2021), it becomes highly relevant to explore police handling of safety – a central task for this authority – in relation to and through social media communication. Here, our focus is on the strategies themselves, and not necessarily on the successfulness of achieving the desired outcome – that is, whether the strategies make a difference and improve the situation for citizens.
The empirical material comprises 20 semistructured interviews with employees from Swedish Police Region South (PRS), which were qualitatively analysed by applying framework analysis (Furber, 2010; Gale et al., 2013). Structurally, a brief background of the Swedish Police case is outlined. Then, the core theoretical framework and concepts related to the study are presented, followed by the material and methodology. The research findings consist of three intertwined strategies and their connection to creating a sense of safety.
The Swedish Police are frequently present in the news media as a topic of interest and are commonly a matter in social media posts and comments and within larger debates and conversations throughout Sweden. Common subjects related to the Swedish Police that draw media attention are gang violence and shootings, lack of human and material resources, police operations (such as the 2017 terrorist attack at Drottninggatan in Stockholm, the 2019 anti-gang “Operation Rimfrost”, and the 2022 Easter riots triggered by rallies held by the far-right party Stram Kurs), and problematic or vulnerable areas, such as Rosengård and Seved in Malmö (Polisen, 2021a).
Malmö is the third largest city in Sweden and the heart of the PRS. This region was chosen for the case study because, in 2022, it had 57 social media accounts (Polisen, n.d., 2019a) in 20 local police areas (Polisen, 2021b), and more importantly, the region is associated with high crime activity and population density (Brå, 2022). The claim that Malmö is equivalent to Chicago – in reference to the previously high levels of criminality in the American city – seems ubiquitous and appears in various channels, such as reports and newspapers (e.g., Bjellert & Palm, 2012; Lönnaeus, 2017), on social media platforms, and in popular culture, such as the Swedish television series
Moreover, the Swedish Police have developed strategies for developing their operations until 2024, including social media usage as an important communication tool to become a more local and present organisation – meeting citizens where they are (Polisen, 2019b). Additionally, police operations are regulated by the Swedish Police Act, which addresses police tasks, cooperation with other authorities, and responsibility for reducing and preventing crime and increasing public safety (Sveriges Riksdag, 1984). The Swedish Police have become increasingly active on social media in recent years and have over 280 verified accounts (as of 2022) on social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube, in addition to four podcasts (Polisen, n.d.). The police can use social media to create a sense of safety, for example, when officers post online to give visibility to their presence in the community, which is part of the digital police relationship-building process (Ralph et al., 2022; Rolandsson, 2020) seen, for instance, in police visiting a kindergarten (Polisen Solna Sundbyberg, 2021). Police social media posts can potentially reduce citizens’ fear of being exposed to crimes and increase their perception of safety.
Police visibility, proximity, and professionalism in the community build trust between police officers and citizens, reducing concern about crime and boosting the sense of safety (Skogan, 2009). Therefore, police work depends on the public attributing legitimacy and trusting the police to reduce fear and increase safety. In this context, social order occurs via community involvement (Jackson & Bradford, 2009) and problem-solving activities at the local level (Myhill & Quinton, 2010). And in this sense, safety has a positive value, one which every citizen has the right to feel, although safety and insecurity are both flexible to changing conditions and the possibility of harm or danger (Hermansson, 2018; Möller et al., 2006). Therefore, studies regarding police work are linked to making citizens feel safe by being close (proximate) and visible (Skogan, 2009) and sharing fact-oriented information (Palm & Skogersson, 2008) to build trust (Schaap, 2021).
To further understand trust and safety, it is necessary to discuss the term “creating a sense of safety” in relation to the risk and severity of harm and the perception of trust maintained through communication (Bergquist et al., 2015; Lee & Jahng, 2020; Möller et al., 2006). In a study of citizen views of safety and police work in the Nordics, Holmberg (2005) argued that police authorities and the public often have different, sometimes unrealistic, perspectives on safety. These different perspectives are related to factors associated with police visibility, proximity between police officers and citizens, and police working on realistic tasks based on local issues identified by the community, and not the other way around (Bergquist et al., 2015; Holmberg, 2005). In addition, citizens’ sense of safety comes from their view of society, which does not necessarily correlate with police perspectives. This potential discrepancy between expectation and reality can lead to citizens losing trust in the police (Jackson & Bradford, 2009).
Kunnel (2021) argued that trust is a process of social interactions and functions between human beings, referring to how we process information and our environment. Rothstein (2000) emphasised that people generally want to do the right thing as long as everybody else does it, too, representing how hospitals, schools, the tax system, and the justice system, among others, serve the public interest and well-being. Therefore, social relationships play a significant role in generating trust by involving risk awareness and reducing uncertainties in the interaction between human beings and organisations (Luhmann et al., 2017). Moreover, these relationships are dynamic and can be influenced by distinct communication processes, information access and availability, situation and context, as well as by the bond between the actors involved and their sense of belonging and safety (Andersson et al., 2021; Kunnel, 2021; Rothstein & Kumlin, 2001). Thus, media communication from the police is essential to establishing and maintaining trust among citizens (Palm & Skogersson, 2008; Walsh & O’Connor, 2019).
Nevertheless, it is not necessarily enough for the police to be visible on the streets – and this can sometimes even be counterproductive for perceptions of safety – therefore, the police must communicate their presence somehow (Bullock et al., 2021; Holmberg, 2005). Furthermore, Myhill and Quinton (2010) added that if the police have weak contact and interaction with the public, it can generate distrust. Luhmann and colleagues (2017) asserted that trust must be earned to reduce distrust between parties in diverse societal systems, such as between the police and citizens. A way to address distrust is via interactions. For example, the head of the local police district of Luleå Boden answers questions on Instagram regarding how the Swedish Police create a sense of safety: by working individually and collectively with the primary purpose of actively addressing possible causes of the fear of crime (Polisen Luleå-Boden, 2021). Further, creating a sense of safety is not done exclusively by the police; it necessarily involves other authorities, municipalities, schools, and companies (such as property owners) through police–citizen partnerships [medborgarlöften], which refers to a twoway communication model for creating safety and increasing trust within an area and among its citizens (Berg et al., 2020; Brå, 2018).
Since the early 2000s, technological development has enabled users to produce and distribute media content across different platforms and formats with extensive outreach (Castells, 2007; Fuchs, 2021). In particular, the attributes of social media platforms combine the social dimension and technology for instant communication, interactions, collaborations, and spreadability (Burgess et al., 2018; Fuchs, 2021). Heide and colleagues (2021) added that social media, on the positive side, has made it easier to communicate and share content and information and has brought possibilities to learn, build, and maintain relationships in both private and organisational contexts. Undeniably, social media impacts individuals, groups, and organisations from different sectors both positively and negatively in terms of communicating and cooperating about various agendas, conditions, and roles in society (Dawson, 2018; Fuchs, 2021; Trittin-Ulbrich et al., 2021). The dynamic nature of social media platforms and their ubiquitous accessibility via diverse gadgets, such as smartphones and tablets, affect our connectivity to platforms, other users, content, and data (Burgess et al., 2018; van Dijck, 2013). Nonetheless, social media does not function without risk for an organisation and its employees, because it is difficult to control the content, and it is more common for organisations to inform than to communicate with stakeholders (Falkheimer & Heide, 2014), without personal contact (Terpstra et al., 2019).
Research on social media and strategic communication encourages organisations, such as the Swedish Police, to “come closer” to citizens and be more personal in creating their identity and establishing and maintaining a good connection with followers (Bergquist et al., 2015; Olsson & Eriksson, 2016). For instance, this can be done using humour, even if this is problematic and raises questions concerning seriousness (Rasmussen, 2017). Additionally, specific social media platforms can represent affordances, tensions, loss of control, and strategic challenges for an organisation (Albu & Etter, 2016), as they function beyond a marketing tool (Dawson, 2018), communicating power, establishing the organisation's identity, and ratifying its status (Beverungen et al., 2019). Another issue is that the police can be less present, active, and personal with citizens because of their increased dependency on information technology and communication systems, including social media. Terpstra and colleagues (2019) argued that this leads to negative consequences of anonymous, less accessible, fragmented, uninterested, and bureaucratic police officers focusing on doing right in their work systems instead of helping citizens.
In the police context, social media communication is “employed for expressive purposes and provides an ideal setting for the police to present their organizational selves” (Walsh & O’Connor, 2019: 5). Williams and colleagues (2018) stated that police organisations’ social media strategies need to be more precise about when to inform and communicate, embrace new trends, and use emergent platforms. This challenge can be met by using creative styles inspired by other professions’ social media content (Rolandsson, 2020), while respecting cultural, local, and national contexts that shape trust-building between the police and the public (Schaap, 2021).
Furthermore, to increase police visibility, transparency, credibility, and out-reach, social media networks (Bergquist et al., 2015) and other media platforms and formats (such as television, newspapers, radio, and websites) should be combined for wider awareness and communication with the public (Falkheimer & Heide, 2014; Olsson & Eriksson, 2016; Williams et al., 2018). However, Swedish authorities are under pressure for not being sufficiently transparent in their media management (Enbom et al., 2014), which highlights questions regarding the purpose of their social communication (Ralph et al., 2022). This includes the police transparency dilemma, which involves the decision to reveal or seal information, such as quantities of drugs or weapons seized. Other examples of difficulties faced by the police regarding social media communication are explored in popular culture, such as in the case of the Swedish television programme
In this case study, we applied an inductive research approach. The empirical material consists of 20 semistructured interviews with police employees from the PRS who either work with or have used social media in the service. Regarding the respondents, 16 were selected using a purposive sampling approach by the PRS at the end of 2020 and 2021, based on whether they were working or had previously worked with social media. The remaining respondents were selected in 2021 through snowball sampling from the initial PRS selection; in this phase, five employees were asked to participate, and four answered positively. Kvale and Brinkmann's (2014) design for semistructured interviews and questions guided our approach, which emphasised the how, what, and why, along with follow-up questions. The interviews, which were conducted in person or online via Microsoft Teams or Zoom, lasted between 55 and 125 minutes and were held in Swedish. They were all audio-recorded with the participants’ consent. Table 1 shows the participants’ positions in the organisation and whether they directly used social media as a communication tool in their role in the PRS.
Swedish Police employees’ positions in the PRS and their use of social media
| Municipality police officer* | 4 | 3 |
| Community police officer* | 4 | 4 |
| Uniformed police officer/inspector | 4 | 4 |
| Head of police district or local police district | 5 | 2 |
| Public relations officer or communicator | 3 | 3 |
In Sweden, the role of the municipality police is of a strategic function and is the link between the police authority and the municipality and how they can cooperate. The Swedish community police officer works instead in a specific area, within a municipality, close to the public to reduce crime and create a sense of safety (Polisen, 2019b, 2019c).
Subsequently, the results were structured by Furber's (2010) and Gale and colleagues’ (2013) framework analysis for organising and systematising qualitative interview data. We started with the familiarisation phase, which involved converting audio into text by transcribing and writing comprehensive interview summaries and becoming familiar with the empirical data. In the next step, we developed the conceptual thematic framework by identifying relevant codes, such as safety, trust, visibility, policing presence, digital media, social media platforms, different voices, social media downsides, and police roles. Then, we grouped similar codes into conceptual frameworks (the indexing phase), which involved double-checking the data, followed by applying these indices in the thematic framework draft.
After the indexing phase, we reduced, refined, and summarised the interview data into manageable thematic parts connected with the research question. In this phase, interview quotes were added to the thematic framework with code names for the respondents ranging from Resp-A to Resp-T. All quotes used in this article were translated from Swedish into English by Jens Sjöberg, who was responsible for the interviews.
The last phase focused on mapping, interpreting, and synthesising the empirical material into the final theoretical framework (Furber, 2010; Gale et al., 2013). In this phase, three dialectally intertwined social media strategies among the police were identified: sense of safety as a form of transmediality, presence, and transparency.
The respondents received information about the study via e-mail and phone. The information clarified that participation was voluntary, that the Swedish Police did not influence the study – even if they had helped to select the respondents – and that the data would be safely protected at the university. Furthermore, all respondents provided oral consent to participate in the study in exchange for confidentiality. They also had the opportunity to access the audio-recording and transcription afterward, which some did.
Three strategies emerged from the empirical study conducted with 20 police officers of the PRS: transmediality, presence, and transparency. These strategies – applied by the Swedish Police in an effort to create a sense of safety via social media communication and fulfil their lawful duties – are intertwined with previous research (Kunnel, 2021; Terpstra et al., 2019) and an interplay between conceptualisations of trust and safety (Schaap, 2021; Skogan, 2009) to create a sense of safety. Our results show, however, that although the police are applying strategies, they are not necessarily implemented in the most effective way, because the police lack a more extensive understanding on how to do so. The results are detailed below.
Transmediality – an umbrella term describing the pervasive practice of using multiple media platforms and formats to expand content and foster audience engagement (Freeman & Gambarato, 2019) – is a communicative strategy employed by enterprises, governments, institutions, organisations, and private individuals for various purposes, from amplifying revenue streams to involving audiences in social-political change. Our first result is that the Swedish Police apply the transmediality strategy and seek to benefit from integrating multiplatform content in their pursuit of creating and disseminating a sense of safety across platforms, amplifying police outreach. The transmediality of police communication is materialised through the use of various social media networks combined with other online and offline means of communication, such as their website (polisen.se, in the case of Sweden), podcasts, and real-life presence.
Various media platforms are at the heart of society (van Dijck et al., 2018), connecting, involving, and engaging people. Social interaction, mutual affectation, and information exchange are foundational aspects involved in communication processes (Gambarato et al., 2020), including police social media. The current findings demonstrate that the Swedish Police primarily use Facebook and Instagram as their preferred social media channels due to convenience, practicality, and interaction potential. Interaction refers to “the ways that new technologies have been designed to be more responsive to consumer feedback” (Jenkins, 2006: 133). In addition, high-ranking police officers mostly use Twitter in their communication strategies to reach specific groups, such as other government authorities and political actors, which seems in line with the elite-oriented approach of this social media platform (Berglez, 2018). Resp-E stressed the necessity of adapting to the communicative habits of older and younger generations, reflecting, “what is the purpose of our communication, and what is it we want to be trendsetting?”
Although police presence on various and several social media platforms could generate a feeling of abstraction (Terpstra et al., 2019), or distance, the rationale for transmediality as a strategic approach relies on the premise that, to create greater impact, organisations, including the police, must connect to people where they are – and they are generally mobile and accessing multiple platforms (digital as well as nondigital). The transmediality factor increases reachability and public engagement which, in turn, facilitates building trust (Petts, 2008). Trust is intrinsically connected to creating a sense of safety, as discussed earlier, and it is a process dependent on social interactions (Kunnel, 2021) that can be potentialised by transmediality.
The communication strategies on Facebook and Instagram differ in every local police area and reflect local context and demands. In the local police areas of Malmö, for instance, the police use Instagram to portray daily police work and use Facebook for longer and more informative posts. This differs from, for example, local police areas Kalmar-Öland or Nybro, which regularly share the same content on Instagram and Facebook. The respondents stated that the selection of social media platforms depended largely on the target groups. Resp-E posited that, in Malmö, there were ongoing discussions about launching a TikTok account to strengthen their contact with younger people who were no longer on Facebook or Instagram; however, TikTok had not yet been approved by the Swedish Police National Communication Department. Despite the considerable autonomy of individual police officers in managing their social media communications, the creation of new official accounts is dependent upon organisational approval. On a regional level, where most accounts are active, it is the head of the police district, together with the chief of regional communication, who approves new official social media accounts. The National Communication Department, in this case, becomes a support unit in the process (Polisen, 2019a).
It could be argued that there is a disparity between the police strategy of using multiple media platforms to engage different audience segments, which requires being dynamic and agile to be where their target groups are, and the sluggishness of bureaucratic decisions. Meijer and Torenvlied (2016) also noted this bureaucratic discrepancy.
The regulations and strategic goals set by Swedish Police Strategy 2024 (Polisen, 2019b), alongside the Swedish Police Social Media Handbook (Polisen, 2019a), do not necessarily guarantee multiplatform and transparent communication to create a sense of safety. Some respondents stated that they mostly worked by trial and error in their daily communication because of unclear rules regarding social media. Resp-G specified that most police officers who work with social media are not highly educated communicators and have participated only in the authority's social media training. Consequently, some respondents admitted or predicted that mistakes would occur.
The respondents understood the importance of multiplatform communication to address different agendas, including communicating a sense of safety and being closer to the public. Efficiency in this process, however, was not always achieved, as explained by Resp-Q:
The communication is overall quite good, pleasant, and can, in part, be about the sense of safety as well as the operative police work. However, we fail to integrate these two […] and that is not resource efficient, I think.
The research findings also show that the transmediality of the communication process can be affected by the fact that the Swedish Police communicate only in Swedish. This choice limits the potential engagement of diverse audience groups and interferes with transparency, which is presented later in relation to transparent communication.
Some respondents mentioned ongoing discussions within the Swedish Police concerning how they could improve the use of their multiple social media accounts and platforms. Resp-N stated that the most common content strategy for social media was “to communicate crime prevention, which we do quite a lot […] but it is more unusual for us to communicate in terms of a sense of safety”. Respondents asserted that other discussions within the Swedish Police revolved around updating guidelines and handbooks about social media, including more robust control of the accounts, appropriate use of platforms, clearer connection to local context, and the meaning of creating a sense of safety.
The use of social media by organisations in various sectors, including the police, is the rule rather than the exception. In the context of creating a sense of safety, the core issue is how the police strategically take advantage of the opportunities enabled by social media networks – such as connectivity, proximity, and outreach (van Dijck, 2013) – and how they deal with the challenges (such as vulnerability, breach of confidentiality, and derogatory comments) that are present in this kind of mediated communication.
Local police areas have unique ways of working with social media strategies. Police officers in local communities often believe that their online From my side, I have not reflected on the sense of safety in the images in the posts. Instead, the posts show different aspects, but in some cases, I can clearly see that [creating a sense of safety] is the purpose.
In this context, theoretical understanding of presence derives from our conceptualisation of space as something both material and physical – for instance, a place characterised by clear geographic borders – and, concomitantly, something liquid and borderless (Meyrowitz, 1985). For example, as has been theorised by David Morley (2000), home can be understood as a space that is both physical or material (the place one lives, one's community, country, etc.) and nonphysical (constituted by memories, feelings, traditions, etc.). In a similar way, then, the digital demonstration of police presence in space – to create a sense of safety – could encompass both dimensions: something that is or is not physical or material and their complex relations. It is also notable that the opposite of presence, that is, absence, is endowed with a similar double meaning (see also Derrida, 1976): to be situated somewhere other than here geographically (e.g., 10 miles away) or being distant mentally or emotionally (e.g., being disengaged or disinterested).
In this study, the second strategy identified involves the attempt to use social media as an extension of physical presence, that is, an effort to amplify police presence. Digital presence becomes evidence of physical or material presence in terms of communicating “Look, we are here” in this or that area, street, suburb, and so on. Social media communication creates a presence, which could also (to some extent) compensate for the police's ability to patrol and be ubiquitously (physically) present (meaning they cannot be everywhere all the time, but they still do a great deal).
In this respect, Resp-O posited that police social media posts are a way of informing and creating a sense of safety in the neighbourhood because citizens generally appreciate a police officer who is locally present and socially engaged. Therefore, geographically, local context plays an essential role in creating a sense of safety linked to police visibility, Resp-N stated. Other respondents mentioned that social media reflects how the Swedish Police work with tasks in problematic areas, such as Rosengård or Seved in Malmö, or large geographic regions with sparsely populated areas, as in the five local police areas in the Police District Kalmar Kronoberg. Thus, the police must be where citizens are online – and they are on social media – because this can compensate for the inability to be present in several places at once and become part of creating a sense of safety in the area. This further points to Andersson and colleagues’ (2021) findings that organisations expect employees to use social media for different work tasks to increase their effect and relationships with followers. Respondents who work with Instagram emphasised that most of the content posted on this platform was about the local police presence and that they were aware of what citizens struggle with:
A lot is about posting things that may have happened or that we have done to show our followers, especially those who we want to reach in the area, that we are here working with the problems that exist and want a preventive effect. And we hope that creating a sense of safety will be a side product of the posts we publish.
Nonetheless, the sense of safety is temporary and constantly shifts based on how the Swedish Police combine social media and their offline work. The respondents emphasised that, from their standpoint, safety means that citizens feel able to participate in society without being afraid of being exposed to or affected by crime. It also involves knowing how and why the Swedish Police work as they do. This includes honest and attentive police officers who are visible to the population both online and offline in the everyday context. These arguments are in agreement with previous research (e.g., Bergquist et al., 2015; Bullock et al., 2021; Williams et al., 2018) and Swedish Police Strategy 2024 (Polisen, 2019b), which mentions getting closer to citizens to be able to fulfil the police task of creating a sense of safety. Reflecting on this matter, Resp-B stated: “The important thing is to show the citizens or the local police area what we do, so they feel that the police
Digital presence through social media then also potentially becomes like a many-to-many communicative meeting space between authorities and citizens, a space of trust in collectively creating a sense of safety. Specifically, this concerns ongoing dialogues between the police and citizens and relates to present, empathic police officers in nondigital and digital mediascapes. For instance, police employees can 1) get information and tips from citizens concerning crimes and safety issues in different places, such as traffic problems around schools, or preventing drug use and sales around a shopping mall, and 2) communicate that they are working on issues demanded by citizens, which can be understood as a form of digital patrolling. Resp-I added that for the police to create a sense of safety and prevent crime, employees must be active and known by citizens in their neighbourhoods in nondigital as well as digital mediascapes. Resp-F stated that the police “can no longer choose an arena where we want to meet citizens. We need to select arenas citizens use, and therefore, digital media is essential”.
Furthermore, some respondents said that cooperation with municipalities, schools, and private and government organisations, such as police–citizen partnerships, is vital to increasing and maintaining trust – matching the results of previous studies (Berg et al., 2020; Brå, 2018; Myhill & Quinton, 2010) – and to consolidating a sense of safety. Police work can, for example, directly or indirectly impact safety, because the police work on local issues demanded by citizens, which strengthens the trust-building process between the police and the population. Nonetheless, some respondents added that trust and safety could quickly change because of what happens in the local context, which Resp-E affirmed: “I can say that the work the municipal police officers do is the right way to approach and reach our citizens”.
Nevertheless, some respondents stated that trust and a sense of safety could decrease when the police disappear from an area, make specific interventions, or do too little, increasing insecurity. Some Malmö police employees stated that a combination of active police presence with covert methods to prevent crime can, in the future, increase trust and safety for citizens in a specific area. However, negativity and criticism does occur on various PRS social media accounts. The criticism is mainly about mistrusting the police, misunderstandings, or ambiguity, but certainly, some people in Sweden do not like the police regardless of circumstances, Resp-S said. Several respondents admitted the struggle of not being physically present everywhere and sometimes not helping citizens effectively, but they primarily blamed a lack of human and material resources instead of taking responsibility for other possible factors interfering with the quality of police work, such as lack of preparedness, bias, prejudice, racial profiling, organisational missteps, or inexperience, among others.
Thus, digital presence enables police employees to extend their outreach and respond to incoming criticism that they are not present or working with the wrong things, according to several respondents. However, being a present and effective police officer includes more than sharing information and being on social media. It is also about presenting results and facts about concrete situations in a certain area to create a sense of safety. On this note, Resp-F commented:
We experience that Malmö is a city you would like to report on media, while putting a context to what you have talked about Sweden's Chicago [… such as in the case] of telling stories about Malmö where you cannot be out and that there are people injured with gunshots on the streets every day. […] Therefore, it is extremely crucial for us to speak and present facts.
Transparency is the third strategy identified in this study. The strategic communication approach to the concept of transparency involves information, participation, and accountability: “information that is truthful, substantial and useful; participation of stakeholders in identifying the information they need; and objective, balanced reporting of an organization's activities and policies that holds the organization accountable” (Rawlins, 2008: 6). In addition, Rawlins (2008: 16) considered that “as organizations become more transparent, they will also become more trusted”. However, for an organisation to be transparent, it is not required for it to share (1) communicated transparency offers audiences an opportunity to learn more about organisational values, decision-making and functioning; (2) perceived learning elicits a positive, organisation-relevant affective state; and (3) positive affect encourages a durable relationship between perceived learning outcomes and positive evaluations of the organisation.
These propositions directly apply to transparent police communication and justify why transparency is a fundamental strategy for creating a sense of safety. Nevertheless, transparent police communication is not necessarily what is happening in the PRS, according to Resp-P: “We can probably be a little more transparent sometimes, as I said before. I think it is also a part of creating a sense of safety by explaining [things] how they are. However, you can never beautify things”. Even if trustworthy police officers are vital to a community, there is a struggle to show this on social media, because not all police officers want to participate with their face or name, for instance, as discussed by Resp- K:
There are different experiences within the police [regarding whether] you want to be anonymous. I think you’re afraid to expose yourself, and then you turn away from [social media] and don’t want to be part of it and think it's wrong to do so.
Nonetheless, Resp-T emphasised that social media “is a way to show citizens that we listen to them”, thus generating empathy. In addition, an essential factor of social media use is that it gives the police the opportunity to portray an aura of relentlessness and honesty, and, as Kunnel (2021) stated, it provides an opportunity for the police to demonstrate that they take citizen fear, insecurity, and instability seriously. Several respondents stated that social media is a valuable tool for building trust and a sense of legitimacy in police work, which is seen in the numerous followers, interactions, likes, and positive comments the Swedish Police social media accounts have.
It is important that police officers continuously update social media accounts with new content, because it signals that “we are out there”, stated Resp-H. Resp-P added that in the attempt to be an empathic police officer and build trust and safety for citizens, “I have chosen to sign with my first name, which is probably a way to show that I stand for what I have written [on social media…]. It becomes more personal, I think”.
Although the Swedish Police seek to be transparent in their communication, employees must follow rules and regulations on the sensitive use of social media; otherwise, it could generate obfuscation and have devastating consequences for trust in the police (Hopp & Fisher, 2021). Some respondents mentioned that they felt restricted, in some situations, about what they could say and share, which affected the degree of transparency with the public. Nonetheless, the findings show no organisational resistance to social media use. On the contrary, the Police Authority encourages social media communication, but at the individual level, there are police officers who do not want to participate on social media due to transparency issues or risk of threats, for instance. Some respondents believed that this scepticism towards social media is related to the police culture of “no comment”. Resp-F elaborated:
The first thing we say to the media is “no comment” when we have arrested someone [because] we should not tell it. There may be someone who can destroy evidence. We have a very strong culture of not being transparent.
On the other hand, there was the impression among some of the interviewees that the police have become In the beginning, we decided to publish many posts on social media and be personal, being on the edge of what is okay. We needed to try out what's suitable and so on. […] And now, when we get criticised for what we’ve done, it becomes sensitive for many [officers and] you start to get performance anxiety for some posts and start to question [if you should] add content, especially when you can’t see the problem. You feel your toes are trampled on a little.
This argument connects to the instantaneity of social media and the consequent high risk of generating misunderstandings or obfuscation (Hopp & Fisher, 2021), which could negatively affect the trust the population places in police work (Rawlins, 2008). As argued by some respondents, the social media focus can raise awareness of otherwise unknown criminal activities, increasing fear in a certain area and potentially decreasing the sense of safety there. Even if the police intend to communicate transparently, the lack of knowledge and awareness of social media communication clearly identifiable in some employees can lead to the use of inappropriate language and tone, excessive humour, abusive behaviour, or the sharing of confidential content. Nevertheless, Resp-S reminded us of the responsibility to inform the public with clarity and transparency:
Within the police, we must remember that the public pays our salaries […] and they’re the ones we work for, and it must always, always be so. Then we must be open about everything we can say, within the secrecy regulations, of course.
The creation of a sense of safety is directly involved with the Swedish Police's transparent communication, as the perception of safety can be positively or negatively influenced by social media communication. On the one hand, social media can (allegedly) create an understanding of and sense of legitimacy for police work, especially when police communicate about “what” and “why” using simple, appropriate language. Then, social media can support and create a sense of safety because it shares knowledge (about the police) transparently. On the other hand, social media can generate misunderstandings, spread insecurity, reveal a lack of human and material resources, and disclose information that should be kept confidential to avoid interference with active police work. Finally, respondents argued that police officers must be sensible, reasonable, and honest in their communication, because trust, safety, and empathy are valuable commodities in a fast-changing society.
In this study, we explored how Swedish Police employees from PRS understand, use, communicate, and tentatively create a sense of safety via social media platforms. Our goal was to identify the strategies applied in the process of creating a sense of safety. Even if the findings demonstrate that the police lack comprehensive understanding and awareness of how to implement these strategies, the study advances the literature by identifying relevant strategies directly related to the digital creation of a sense of safety, a topic less investigated than other instances of organisational communication. The Swedish case illustrates a broader reality that is also experienced in other parts of the world, and the results can shed light on similar issues elsewhere.
The findings reveal the complexity of creating a sense of safety on social media, which encompasses the challenge of building trust between the police and the public. Three intertwined strategies used by the police to create a sense of safety were identified: transmediality, presence, and transparency. These strategies reflect efforts to make citizens feel safe through proximity and visibility (Bergquist et al., 2015; Holmberg, 2005; Ralph et al., 2022; Skogan, 2009), sharing fact-oriented information (Bullock et al., 2021; Palm & Skogersson, 2008), and building trust (Holmberg & Rothstein, 2017; Kunnel, 2021; Petts, 2008; Schaap, 2021).
Thus, trust-building activities across multiple media platforms (transmediality), in both the digital and nondigital spheres (presence), and in a transparent manner (transparency) are embedded in creating a sense of safety. The pervasiveness of social media has the potential to amplify police visibility, presence, and outreach, supporting and creating a sense of safety. Moreover, transparent communication can contribute to awareness of police work, connecting people to the police, and strengthening public trust and a sense of safety in society.
The findings furthermore reveal that the production and dissemination of social media content about creating a sense of safety are not as clear and ubiquitous as the Swedish Police might desire. Although the Swedish Police are aware of their duty to create a sense of safety, and aim to do so, they are not necessarily well equipped to do so via social media because of a lack of self-reflexivity (Dean, 2017) on how to effectively create a sense of safety or a lack of preparedness to perform operational and communicational police work concomitantly, for instance. Hence, the strategies discussed in this study consist of a complex combination of 1) witnessing of planned work concerning the use of social media for a sense of safety purposes and 2) reasoning and actions which seem less planned and ad hoc. By highlighting creating a sense of safety in the interviews, the respondents were forced to reflect more deeply upon what they actually do with social media. Consequently, we identified three strategies, but still with much “work in progress” thinking and questions among the police officers.
An important limiting factor in the officers’ ability to create a sense of safety is the fact that they communicate exclusively in Swedish, which is problematic for its excluding nature in a region such as Malmö, where the immigrant population is large and, moreover, intrinsically intertwined with safety-related matters. Historically, public safety in Sweden has (strongly) been related to the welfare state (Hermansson, 2018). Social security issues are closely connected to the role of the welfare state, communities, and citizens in creating a sense of safety as a social project, although this argument requires further research. Another limitation of the study is that we used a qualitative approach with police employees from the PRS. We suggest that future studies instead use a macro perspective on how the police communicate a sense of safety via social or digital media.
In sum, the respondents often referred to creating a sense of safety more as a side product of Swedish Police communication, exposing the lack of an over-arching strategy and consistent tactics for how social media, among other media channels, can deliberately be used to create, disseminate, and maintain a sense of safety. Strategy refers to what you want to achieve, and tactics imply how you are going to achieve it. In the case of the Swedish Police, although the three strategic principles of transmediality, presence, and transparency were identified, the strategies for creating a sense of safety among the citizens have not necessarily been realised to their full extent. Malmö is not Sweden's Chicago, but the challenge of creating a sense of safety in the area remains a Dantean task.