Dealing with the Digital: Social Media, Police Legitimacy and the 2013 Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Festival

Abstract

The networked, monitory capacity of online communication has challenged pre-digital notions of police legitimacy and accountability. However, the impact of digital technologies on crime and justice issues are under-researched and under-theorised. In the 1990s, amateur video recording technology provided a new way of exposing police transgression, notably of police excessive force. This new form of scrutiny intensified public discourse on the proportionality of police practices and the adequacy of sanctions against police who transgress. Social media and amateur digital video have further enabled this ability to watch from below (Mann, Nolan et al. 2003) and evaluate the extent to which police use of force is reasonably necessary. This thesis examines the impact of digital technologies on police legitimacy and accountability in an era when social relations are increasingly mediated through digital communications. The thesis uses the amateur video of police excessive force at the 2013 Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras parade distributed through social media and its impact on police-LGBTIQ+ community relations in Sydney as a case study. It provides a rare, comprehensive perspective on the impact of social media on police, media, minority communities and a wider public audience. Through in-depth interviews, police and non-police audiences closely affected by the video and reactions to it provide an empirical example of how police legitimacy is negotiated in the digital age. Through an online survey some of those within the LGBTIQ+ community in Sydney most affected by contemporary public order policing provide insight into how social media impacts their negotiations of police legitimacy. The central argument of this thesis is that social media provides police institutions with a frank evaluation of police performance and police accountability measures. This evaluation presents an opportunity to enhance police legitimacy through police responding to community concerns about police performance, visibility and transparency. Within differentially policed communities, an inadequate response to police transgression can further strain already tense police-community relations. This is despite an increasingly engaged official police presence on social media. The policing of the 2013 Mardi Gras Festival raises broader questions about policing priorities and how they are defined and measured. This is within a context of many of the recorded crime problems of the late 20th century abating in Australia, demanding a refocus on problems that require contemporary legal and ethical solutions.