The Mediatization of Policing: Crossing the line between policing and media in Trinidad and Tobago

This study presents a conceptual framework for the mediatization of policing by investigating the image work activities of the large and well-resourced Trinidad and Tobago Police Service (TTPS) to understand how media have shaped contemporary police practice and decision-making over the past two decades. It marks the first investigation of the police-media nexus using the concept of mediatization and its driving force, media logic in the Global South. Adopting an institutionalist approach to mediatization, this study uses expert interviews with fourteen members of the TTPS and documentary analysis from key texts related to the plans, policies, procedures and performance of the institution. This study conceptualizes mediatized policing as a process whereby police departments adapt to media logic to increase public trust, legitimacy and control, by using traditional and digital media formats, redefining police competency to include media competency, employing the media as an arm of policing and embedding police officers within the media. The study also outlines basal assumptions about mediatized policing, namely that it is policing which (i) is increasingly dependent on the media to achieve institutional goals and respond to institutional challenges (ii) allocates human resources, including operational police officers, to image work activities (iii) is driven by key institutional actors and spreads throughout the institution (iv) requires polymedia, but will gravitate towards the social media platform, Facebook. This study has implications for the fields of media, policing, criminology, public relations and governance, and will be of interest to the media, law enforcement, criminologists, public relations professionals and legislators.