A critical analysis of the “dialogic communications” potential of sub-Saharan African Police Service websites

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Highlights

  • We examine the socio-economic development potential of engaging dialogue on sub-Saharan Africa Police Service Websites (SSAPWs).

  • SSAPWs performed reasonably highly on the ease of interface, but lagged in other areas.

  • More proactive public sector marketing strategies are needed – leveraging a platform for effective crime detection, reporting and fighting.

  • A collaborative effort between the police and citizens should be institutionalized.

  • This study contributes to the scant literature on the potential of constructive dialogue on public service websites in a developing world context.

Abstract

This study examines the socio-economic development potential of engaging dialogue on sub-Saharan Africa Police Service Websites (SSAPWs). Drawing upon Kent and Taylor's (1998) dialogic communications framework the study covers countries from Angola to Zambia. SSAPWs were found to have performed reasonably high on the ease of interface, while lagging in terms of disseminating useful information; ability to engage the public in constructive dialoguing (i.e. dialogic loop); conservation of visitors; and return visits. While internet penetration rates in SSA may be low and expensive, most people with internet access are underreported, as data is atypically derived from unreliable PC internet subscriptions as opposed to social media usage via mobile devices. The authors argue for more proactive public sector marketing strategies, leveraging the SSAPW platform for effective crime detection, reporting and fighting – in a collaborative effort between the police and the citizens of concerned states. In so-doing the study not only contributes to the scant literature on the potential of constructive dialogic communications on the websites of public services in the developing world context – not the least in the police service sector. In other words the study goes beyond the usual suspects (e.g. online retailing) to dialogue in policing.

Introduction

The wave of communications at the turn of the twenty-first century has moved away from monologic to dialogic in a two-way interaction and/relationship building/bonding between service providers and service consumers. The same trend has also been witnessed in the case of religious institutions (notably churches) and their faithful (i.e. congregation), political parties and their electorate/voters, governments and the citizens. This dialogic experience, while initially an event at the bricks-and-mortar environment, has more recently been replicated online (i.e. on the internet). Indeed creating dialogue through websites is the commitment and acceptance of the value of relationship building on the part of an organization with its publics. Dialogic potential of a website allows for two-way communication which promotes interactivity. In dialogic communication, the receiver of the message is allowed to communicate back to the sender which is the beginning of relationship creation.

A review of the extant literature on dialogic communications suggests that the concept has been applied in numerous contexts outside of the private sector. Indeed a wide range of public as well as third sector organizations and/or institutions have become cognizant of the need to engage their membership proactively based on dialogic principles. From the marketing of churches and/or other religious activities (see Hackett, 2006, Waters and Tindall, 2010); right through non-profit activist organizations; colleges and universities; and even police websites save for (William & Raffe, 2005).

Consequently, this study aims to investigate how interactive a police website is to facilitate the police–citizenry relationship that could promote security and facilitate socio-economic well-being. A further review of literature indicates that global discourses about the dialogic concept have mostly been carried out in advanced economies leaving developing countries out of the debate, thus prompting us to examine the dialogic potential of sub-Saharan Africa Police Websites (SSAPWs). In this study we posit that in order to effectively identify and cope with community issues, the Police must find new ways of communicating with the public and seek feedback as information possessed by citizens can be integral to their policing effectiveness. Furthermore, Police websites provide the opportunity for both citizens and the police force to dialogue on matters attendant to security, law and order. It is important to establish with this study the extent to which institutions in SSA use websites to create such relationships with their publics. From the foregoing discussions, we seek to address one central question – how well are SSA Police Agencies incorporating the dialogic concept in the development and use of their corporate Websites?

Following this section the literature review is presented as a foundation for the development of the study's proposed conceptual framework. In the third section the research design is specified, followed by a presentation and discussion the study's findings in the fourth section. The fifth section is devoted to the conclusions and practical/policy implications.

Section snippets

Literature review and conceptual framework

A review of the extant literature on dialogic potential of the website shows that the concept has been applied to marketing churches (Waters & Tindall, 2010), non-profit activist organizations (Kent et al., 2003, Reber and Kim, 2006, Seltzer and Mitrook, 2007, Taylor et al., 2001), colleges and universities (McAllister-Spooner, 2008), congressional websites (Taylor & Kent, 2004), and litigation public relations firms (Reber, Gower, & Robinson, 2007). Ryan (2003) pointed out that the more an

Conceptual framework

The proliferation of media channels and fragmented audiences is leading public relations theorists to build relationships with publics through dialogue rather than via conventional mass communication approaches (Gordon & Berhow, 2009). Pieczka (2011) argues that dialogue is where public relations’ conceptual centre of gravity is rooted. The main objective of public relations is to create a relationship and a dialogue across different stakeholder groupings. Both scholars and practitioners are

Methodology

Considering the nature of this study, the study has opted for the adoption of content analysis (see Waters, Burnett, Lamm, & Lucas, 2009) of SSAPWs. We nonetheless acknowledge the existence of other quantitative and qualitative research designs requiring the use of surveys, archival records, direct observation and physical evidence. In the content analysis we relied upon a list of SSA states obtained from the Africa Union (AU) website, which provided an updated directory of member states.

Results

We report our findings in two broad parts along the five key variables outlined in our conceptual framework as adopted from Kent and Taylor (1998). The first part of the discussion is done on the individual principles of dialogic perspective while the second part discusses the aggregate dialogic potential of SSAPWs. As previously stated, we analyzed the contents of the websites in line with the five principles advanced by Kent and Taylor (1998) in order to determine the extent of the dialogic

Discussion of findings

The overall performance of the dialogic capacity of SSAPWs was ascertained by aggregating the individual principles marks for each country into total dialogic score. A total of 32 dialogic capacity points were used to assess the overall dialogic potential with the results displayed in Table 3. The South African Police Services (SAPS) employed the most dialogic elements in creating a mediated, two-way, dialogic relationship with their publics through their corporate website. The SAPS website

Conclusions

This study extends the investigation of online dialogic potential of website by examining the dialogic potential of SSAPWs. The Police as a law enforcement agency and also as a ‘peace keeper’ needs to be in constant touch with the populace in diverse forms and one of such forms is through the Internet. The Internet has the potential of presenting what an institution wants to communicate to its target audience in real time. It is, therefore, important for SSAPWs to be designed along dialogic

Implications and future research directions

This study has suggested how the police force in individual SSA states/countries can communicate with each other in order to combat cross-border crime. While acknowledging the theoretical underpinning numerous papers published in this journal, we must point out that none of these actually investigated a public service such as the police websites, which makes this study a pioneering effort in a bid to lay some groundwork for future research.

A second contribution is methodological where although

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