Inside the Digital Revolution: Policing and Changing Communication with the Public

Bridgette Wessels offers a unique insight into the ways in which core institutions and powerful organizations develop digital communications and services in the public realm.The book draws on the author's ethnographic research with the London Metropolitan Police Service during their engagement in an innovative project to improve communication with the public using digital technology, in collaboration with public services and technology suppliers from across Europe. As one of the largest, most advanced and highly respected police services in the world, working in a socially, culturally and demographically complex city, the Metropolitan Police Service offers a highly revealing case study of the situatedness of technology and the human processes which it is designed to serve. Wessels uses her ethnographic research to develop a new theoretical and conceptual framework for understanding the relationship between social action and technological change, addressing the way in which technology is socially shaped and culturally informed. The book also offers a discussion of the role of ethnography in late modern western society as a tool for researching complex multi-perspective, multi-sited networks of the innovation of digital technologies as forms of communication. Contents: Introduction; The problem of defining 'project digital': making sense of digital technologies in police service environments; The cultural dynamics of technological change; Putting the researcher in the field: the performances and positions of the ethnographer in innovative networks of communication; The relations of production: police working with other agencies; Phase one of the relations of production: 'kicking-off and the early days'; Phase two of the relations of production: 'moving on and developing e-services'; The construction of a digital services narrative at European, national and regional levels; Narratives of service provision in the Metropolitan Police Service: embedding telematics within service narratives; Participation between service providers and residents; local people's perceptions of services in the East End of London; Operational policing; Conclusion; Appendix: the research methods and objectives of Newhaven focus groups; Bibliography; Index.About the Author: Bridgette Wessels is Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Sheffield, UK. Her writing and research focuses on the social and cultural dynamics of the internet and ICT.