Normalisation of crisis communication in post-crisis times: examining the Facebook page of Hong Kong police force during and after radical protests

ABSTRACT

Despite the extensive research on police use of social media for crisis communication, their post-crisis social media activity warrants further exploration. This paper analyses 4,177 posts from the Hong Kong Police Force’s (HKPF) Facebook page from June 2018 to May 2021, covering periods before, during, and after the wave of violent protests in 2019. The study found that, during the protest movement, the HKPF’s social media agenda underwent a significant shift – from serving as a public relations tool to creating an image of a crime-fighting force. This agenda persisted post-crisis, with the police demonstrating increased activity on social media during this period. At the same time, the police made efforts to restore a degree of friendly tone after the movement. The research suggests that, despite the general tendency to restore legitimacy following civil unrest, such a crisis can impact the police’s perception of their relationship with citizens. Instead of reverting their social media strategy to its pre-crisis state, the crisis-era strategy could become normalised in post-crisis times. The findings of this research provide insight into how civil unrest can affect the police – citizen relationship and how the government’s reaction to the crisis can shape the police’s public relations strategy in the aftermath.

KEYWORDS:

• Police
• social media
• crisis communication
• social movement
• Hong Kong

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 A hybrid regime is fundamentally authoritarian, yet it also possesses a certain degree of civil liberty, constitutionalism, tolerance for opposition, and democratic elements in its elections. Although a status quo is often maintained within these hybrid regimes, the combination of authoritarian and democratic components can impose various kinds of instability on governance. Refer to Kwong (2018) for more on Hong Kong as a hybrid regime.

2 According to a longitudinal survey on the satisfaction of Hong Kong citizens with the Police Department, conducted by the Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute since June 2012, the satisfaction level ranged between 60 and 70 (on a scale where 100 marks represent the highest satisfaction) from June 2012 to June 2019. However, the satisfaction level dropped drastically to 37.4 in November 2019, during the peak of the Anti-ELAB Movement, and remained low at 36.8 in May 2020. More details can be found on the institute’s website: https://www.pori.hk/pop-poll/disciplinary-force/x001.html

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by University Grants Committee: [grant number UGC/FDS14/H11/19].