The Social Media Test

This chapter outlines the impact of digital media technologies on public order policing in the early decades of the twenty-first century. The chapter details the context and consequences of a viral media case of police excessive force filmed by a bystander at the 2013 Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Parade and uploaded to YouTube. This major case study triangulates in-depth interviews with police and non-police stakeholders, social and mainstream media analysis, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex (LGBTQI) and allied responses to an online survey. Combined, this data is the empirical basis for most of the claims made throughout the book. This, and the other cases drawn on, develop analytical approaches to ‘sousveillance’—the watching of authority from below—and its interrelationship with police legitimacy, accountability, and trust and confidence in police. The chapter emphasizes the importance of the ‘social media test’; the mutually constituted relationship between social media, mainstream media and police media in agenda-setting and contesting police narratives. The chapter argues that the increased digital media exposure and scrutiny of operational and institutional police practices can substantiate greater civilian demand for police justification of police performance in order to sustain trust and confidence in police.