Özet:

Social media stands out as an important means of communication at the individual and institutional levels with its high prevalence and impact as well as many features it offers. It is an important tool especially for informing, monitoring, and directing the masses. It is significant that this tool is used by the police department having the mission of ensuring individuals’ safety of life and property, preventing criminal activities, fighting criminals, and ensuring social peace. In this regard, this study aims to examine the content of the posts by the Instagram account (a part of social media) of the Turkish Police Department. To this end, 1,903 posts made by the Police Department on its official Instagram account between February 20, 2016 and February 20, 2021 were subjected to content analysis through numbers, percentages, calculation, ranking, and comparison. The results show that the Police Department used social media for purposes such as promoting the institution, informing the public and raising their awareness on issues such as traffic rules, road condition, public health, violence, and disability, and making community policing and citizen-police solidarity visible. 60% of the shares involve institutional information, and 54% of the followers interact with the shares. While the institutional information shares from the Instagram account have received the fewest likes though they are most in number, the contents of the criminal incidents shared the least have received the most likes. This is followed by posts about community policing and informative posts, respectively. Within the scope of the aim of improving cooperation with citizens in the fight against crime and criminals, the Police Department should make formal arrangements and create expert teams for the more effective use of social media. Since there are very few studies on the subject in the national (Turkish) literature, this study is anticipated to contribute to the literature.

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