Socialization of the media and the police as a component of the concept of trust

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Lviv State University of Internal Affairs

Verbytsky P.S. Candidate of Sciences in Social Communications, Senior Lecturer of the Department of Tactical Special Training, Faculty No. 3

Анотація

Вербицький П.С. кандидат наук з соціальних комунікацій, старший викладач кафедри тактико-спеціальної підготовки факультету №3ІПФПНП, Львівський державний університет внутрішніх справ

СОЦІАЛІЗАЦІЯ ЗМІ ТА ПОЛІЦІЇ ЯК СКЛАДОВА КОНЦЕПЦІЇ ДОВІРИ

Мета підвищення довіри громадськості до поліційної діяльності стала міцно вбудовуватись у медіа практику. Поява нової української поліції призвела до необхідності встановлення загальнонаціональної довіри до поліції і визначення цілей для значних покращень у сфері суспільної довіри до поліційної сфери відповідальності, про що йдеться у статті.

При цьому вартує зазначити, що нова українська поліція і сучасна поліційна служба не повинні ототожнювати себе тільки із злочинністю, розв'язуванням кримінальних справ і виловом злочинців, це - соціальна інституція, яка повинна вибудувати партнерські стосунки із суспільством, яке воно обслуговує. Визначення партнерського підходу до нової української поліції відверто резонують з великою кількістю негативу про поліцію у масмедіа, що свідчить про невеликий рівень легітимності довіри до поліції. Це важливо і на теоретичному рівні, адже модель правосуддя обов'язково ґрунтується на тому, що довіра та легітимність є взаємосформованим процесом, який виражає модель поліційної діяльності.

Очікування підвищення довіри громадськості до поліції, яке можливе через медіа- практику, дає можливості для ЗМІ щодо зниження рівня конфлікту між поліцією та громадськістю. ЗМІ піднімають дискусії про поліцейську діяльність на політичній арені України, зокрема, про роль поліції та громадськості в узгодженні пріоритетів.

Існують певні ознаки довіри громадськості до таких ЗМІ, які повідомляють про неналежну поведінку поліції та про те, як поліція безпосередньо ставиться до представників громадськості. Однак такий контент рідко може вплинути на довіру до того, що в поліції справді відбуваються кардинальні зміни. Основна частина змісту ЗМІ про поліцейську діяльність стосується розслідування злочинів та ефективності поліції у розкритті правопорушень; подібний контент, очевидно, не впливає істотно на довіру суспільства до поліції. Крім того, різноманітність змістових підходів до поліцейської практики має значні відмінності в іміджі поліції і, як нам здається, сприяє викривленню реального сприйняття справ у поліцейських структурах.

Ключові слова: поліція, суспільство, медіа, довіра, соціалізація.

Annotation

The goal of increasing public confidence in policing has become firmly embedded in media practice. The emergence of the new Ukrainian police has led to the need to establish national trust in the police and set goals for significant improvements in public confidence in the police area of responsibility, as discussed in the article.

It should be noted that the new Ukrainian police and the modern police service should not identify themselves only with crime, solving criminal cases and catching criminals, it is a social institution that should build partnerships with the society it serves. Defining a partnership approach to the new Ukrainian police openly resonates with the large number of negatives about the police in the media, which indicates a low level of legitimacy of trust in the police. This is also important at the theoretical level, as the model of justice is necessarily based on the fact that trust and legitimacy are interdependent processes that express the model of policing.

The expectation of increasing public confidence in the proper functioning of the police, which is possible through media practice, presents opportunities for the media in terms of reducing the level of conflict between the police and the public. The media is shifting discussions about policing in Ukraine's political arena - issues such as the role of the police and the role of the public in agreeing on organizational and community priorities may be relevant. The media must find ways to reach those who, in terms of procedural justice, will be relatively remote for journalists from any personal experience of the police's fair or unfair treatment of those who come to their attention.

There are some signs of public confidence in such mass media, which report police misconduct and how the police treat members of the public directly. However, such content can rarely affect the credibility of the fact that the police are really undergoing drastic changes. The main part of the content of the media about policing is the current investigation of crimes and the degree of effectiveness of the police in detecting offenses; such content apparently does not significantly affect public confidence in the police. In addition, the diversity of content approaches to police practice has considerable differences in the image of the police and, it seems to us, contributes to the distortion of real cases in police structures.

Keywords: police, society, media, trust, socialization.

Introduction

Olha Porfimovych, a professor at the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, believes that “the technology of all police law enforcement activities can be divided into two components. The first is internal, organizational and operational activities, which in themselves for various reasons (purely technological, compliance with secrecy and secrecy, etc.) are hidden from the public eye and the media. People cannot judge this side of the police in a certain way and with some certainty and competence. The second component is open, and regularly monitored and evaluated by both the public and the media, and the activities of those police services that interact directly with them. The activity of the police cannot be completely open: it will negatively affect the performance of the main constitutional functions" [1, p. 11]. Considering this statement, the question arises: is there a trust of the police in society, and society in the police? There are few sociological studies that can answer this question. And even so, we have an ambiguous picture of existing opinion polls on this subject. Two of these large-scale studies were conducted almost simultaneously. Thus, in early 2019, the Kharkiv Human Rights Group conducted a study "Results of the National Police of Ukraine through a public opinion poll" [2]. The results showed that the optimism of Ukrainians in their attitude to the National Police is declining. Thus, according to a survey of Kharkiv sociologists, 30.4% of respondents trust the police (among whom 2.7% - completely trust, and 27.7% - rather trust than distrust). 50% of respondents indicated that they do not trust the police: among them 29.6% probably do not trust, and 20.4% - do not trust at all. Thus, the police generally have a negative balance of confidence (-19.6%)" [2].

Other results are provided by the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine. Based on the results of a survey conducted by the Razumkov Center, experts from this department claim that “37.8% of respondents trust the national police. The level of trust increased by 4.9% "[3].

The Communication Department of the National Police of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine and the Communication Departments of the regional departments of the National Police of Ukraine were established due to the need to develop law enforcement agencies to consolidate their public image during routine police practice. In Ukraine, all regional and civic police departments have appointed media representatives (press officers), although some work either part-time or as needed. Their main responsibilities are processing inquiries from the media, disseminating media interviews with (mostly senior) police officers, preparing press releases, holding press conferences, and more.

As a result, the establishment of official media relations offices is a fairly recent event, as such structures have appeared in an updated form recently, when the Regulations on the National Police of Ukraine were updated [1]. Thus, there is still a large field for improvement of such structures, improvement of these services and the use of methods by which the police promote their image through the media.

In the past, journalist and later politician Mustafa Nayem considered the problem of relations between journalists and the media with the police to be very sensitive. According to Mr. Mustafa Nayem, in Ukraine, despite the obligation to enforce the law and the rule of law, the legal framework for policing is secondary: "It is not the law that will change the situation, but the new mentality and atmosphere that prevails in the country." "Civil society, the attitude ofjournalists who have finally united in one" shop "and understand their rights, and public pressure are the main factors that these rights will not be violated" [4].

Results

There are few studies that analyze the media strategies of police departments and the police in general, their preparation for the practice of communication with the media and the possibility of studying their overall effectiveness. Relatively available are studies of open documents of strategic importance, which are used by police organizations to create a favorable public image in society and develop the organization of their work in an era of difficult relationships of police-society-civic interaction.

It is a factor of public trust in the police, and this trust - considering the closed nature of the police and limited access to real events within this structure - is formed mainly through the functioning of the media. It should be noted that any opinion about trust in the police within the circulation of the media revolves around three issues and definitions of trust, and this, in turn, depends on the fact that both society and the police themselves invest in the understanding of trust . We mean three characteristics of social and communicative relations, which indicate the presence or need for trust:

- first, the degree of trust in the existing social system and its social reliability;

- second, the characteristics of the person or institution that deserves or does not deserve trust;

- third, the characteristics of the person or institution that assesses the degree of trust.

Olha Kuzmuk, Associate Professor of Sociology and Social Work at the Lesia Ukrainka East European National University, notes that “trust is dual in nature, being both a prerequisite and a consequence of cooperation. In the processes of interaction between government bodies and administrative institutions with the population, trust, even insignificant, is the foundation that will contribute to more effective interaction. At the same time, if the goal is achieved, the interaction will have two interdependent results: the first - the expected result, the second - a higher level of trust "[5, p. 44-45].

Some researchers, such as German sociologist Niklas Luhmann in the book ''Reality of the Media'' [6], professor at Stanford University (USA), professor at the University of Leicester (UK) Barbara Mistal in the book ''Intellectuals and the Public Good'' [7], Francis Fukuyama in the book "The End of History and the Last Man" [8]), promote the idea of the need to trust any public good, any form of social capital, any social structure. Niklas Luhmann describes the importance of the function of trust in a more abstract way in his work "Trust and Power" [9]. Approaching the problem of trust as a necessity, as a basic fact of social life, the scientist concluded that without trust there can be no sense of confidence in their own expectations, without trust the complexity of the world would be boundless and unpredictable to lead a normal daily life as we know it.

Trust can be the main way to maintain the natural and social order. It is this view of trust as a future- oriented concept that is closely linked to risk and uncertainty. In this context, it is interesting to turn again to the opinion of Niklas Luhmann on the significant differences between trust and confidence, which he expressed in the mentioned work "Trust and Power" [9]. Trust is what we choose to do in risk situations. Confidence, on the other hand, is what we put in a situation of uncertainty, which can be understood as: the real possibility of alternatives is perceived or considered.

In addition, there is a difference between trust as an obvious and trust as a response to frustration when events do not unfold as expected. In the case of certainty, the reaction of a person or society (depending on the content) is an external attribute - there is no control over any situation. In terms of trust, it is a reaction as an internal attribution - someone made a mistake, trusting others. We will return to this difference between trust and confidence later, in the context of police practice.

Sociology professor Charles Tilly (USA) believes that trust is a property of interpersonal relationships, within which people risk failure in relationships. In the book "Trust and Rule", this American scientist hypothesizes that if trust is not violated, understanding and accepting this risk is useful for all parties in social processes. This becomes apparent when we consider the functions of trust. At the charitable, trusting, sincere level of the relationship, the trust duty acts as a social facilitator that promotes correct social relations [10].

But there is a third type of way to determine trust - the characteristics of individuals or institutions that determine reliability. That is the explanation of trust just trust another person, but the explanation for distrust is that someone else does not seem reliable. If trust is the basis of motivation for those who trust, their interests encapsulate the interests of others who feel trusted in the same way, but only in the sense that they have their own interest in the relationship with those they trust. national trust ukrainian police

This "partialness" of trust leads us to believe that the idea of trust, based on the motives of another person, is different from the absolute trust. If a person's own interests are higher than public interests, then the understanding of interest is already narrowly instrumental; but the normative nature of interest is that interest does not betray trust, because in such conditions, public trust is a priori the correct unit in relations with any social institution. It is about trust as fiduciary obligations and fiduciary responsibility. Trust is understood as follows: a social mechanism is proposed that allows effective and simple use of authority (power, image, etc.).

The mass media formulate as if the "second" expectation of trust (the first expectation is given by direct human practice). In the media, the criteria of reliability and competence are the ability to perform what society has entrusted to them in the most practical sense. Professor of Stanford University (USA) Francis Fukuyama in the book "Trust. Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity” treats trust as a phenomenon that occurs when an audience shares a set of moral values in a way that creates expectations of honest behavior [11]. An audience trusts content when it sees and perceives a certain similarity or solidarity in media content or contexts.

Factors of trust in the police. How important is this when it comes to trusting the police? First, the nature of police-public relations can provide a chance for the public trust needed to legitimize the police. "Police by consent" is a factor in the use of force as a last resort. Based on certain elements of personal experience and media images, the public's perception of the police as a legitimate authority and as an element of trust in police officers as members of the public in their just actions is a priori appropriate and in the interests of society and the police.

In order to trust the police, society agrees that the police use their powers and how they use them. Not trusting the police raises questions about its legitimacy. Another measure of the legitimacy of power is that the government must be accountable for established rules (and the legitimacy of police action as well) and be morally responsible for enforcing those rules, as these rules must be based on universal values and norms.

Secondly, trust is of practical importance for public support, respect, cooperation with the police, willingness to accept and make decisions of police officers - perhaps even partially, but the media should explain why people should obey the law. A whole group of scholars have worked with Tom Tyler, already mentioned, for example, Duke University Professor Allan Lind in the work ''Social Psychology of Procedural Justice'' [12] and American sociologist Jason Sunshine in the article ''Moral Solidarity'', Community Identity, and the Importance of Procedural Justice: the Police as the Prototype of the Group” [13]) argue that in the case of the police, trust and legitimacy are important because, in perceiving the police as a reliable and legitimate authority, the media must convince the audience voluntarily postpone any interpretation of police activities. When the government is perceived as a structure that has the right to use force against society, society itself is more inclined to accept the police and carry out police orders, because people feel that this is right, and this is not about coercion. Thus, trust and legitimacy are necessary conditions for the authority and functioning of the police: without this influence on people, any other resources are not very effective.

Much stronger than the instrumental values of trust are fear sanctions which are based on normative adherence to the belief that the police are bad, that a person who deals with the police deserves to be punished. In the book ''Why People Follow the Law'', Tom Tyler concludes that fear is becoming a social norm and a value. By thus internalizing external control and replacing it with self-regulation, society feels obliged to obey the law and comply with the requirements of the police from within [14].

Thus, trust plays an important role in the relationship between the public and the police. It is necessary to ensure cooperation on the basis of which the police are perceived as a legitimate body. Not only the police require the public to trust them in order to ensure the legal right to their activities, the public itself must also trust the police so that society can take full advantage of the police service. Public representatives who do not trust the police will call the police only when absolutely necessary and without much faith in the success of their help, when they personally need protection or justice, and the community is unlikely to rely on the police to protect their norms, values and social order.

This leads to the third problem: what makes the police reliable? Tom Tyler's supporters in this section believe that perceptions of moral equality between the public and the police, procedural fairness, and a belief in the motivation of policing are key elements not only in cooperation between society and the police, but also in public assessments of policing.

Society perceives a sense of moral coherence between the community and the police if that society can identify the goals and values that the police represent and demonstrate through their actions. When the police see that they reflect and protect the values and norms of the community and thus show solidarity with entire groups in society, they maintain trust and create a link between the community and the police. Police reliability assessments are based on how police officers perform their duties.

The problem with the motives and intentions of the police is that this problem is not visible, not public. One should base one's understanding of any problem on a society's understanding of policing that should be in line with general social knowledge. And here the principle of justice brings us to such a social and communicative picture. Citizens should not make their own motivations for the police depend on how the police themselves behave, in particular whether they treat you with a sense of justice and respect their motives and intentions. We understand such approaches to policing as fiduciary duties and responsibilities.

Central to such approaches is the belief in the right of the police to do their job professionally on the one hand and not to act in violation of the law on the other. Trust as a psychological competence means that the police can be trusted not only when society is ready to show that trust, but also if the police are able to do what they promise: to prevent crime, detect crime, protect citizens and property, keep order.

Conclusions

Public trust in the police is also linked to the social content and cultural significance of policing, and these characteristics of its practical scope go much further and deeper than the legal mandate to hunt down criminals, protect citizens and enforce the law. The police are a kind of public guardian of community morality; and people turn to the police to typify and represent certain legal and moral values, to protect and restore them when they are threatened. Contributing to the negative manifestations of society - anti-social behavior, disregard for the law, lack of social cohesion regarding the legality of citizens' actions, etc. - are associated with distrust of the police.

Thus, media coverage not only of the police, but of society as a whole, can affect public confidence in the police. Public trust is a stabilizing factor in policing.

The notion of mutual trust emerges - such trust can show that the motivated basis of mutual trust is not only a social and relational phenomenon, but also based on the idea that there is a social connection between the police and the public, and this allows us to measure and assess the impact on mutual interests. Motivated trust is based on the hope that the police will gain the most interesting public interest in the need to work with the police. This is similar to the idea put forward by Ben Bradford, Jonathan Jackson and Elizabeth Stanko to carry out fiduciary obligations that should go beyond the private interests of each member of society (see: [14]).

The notion of trust motives is related to the public perception of procedural justice, which is realized mainly through direct contacts with the police. That is, a society will treat the police with confidence if that society interprets justice, dignity and respect correctly and if society feels its own role in this interaction.

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