We live in a weird world really, I am listening to an artist called Chipmunk so you can imagine. Anyway, media or channels of communication to put the idea in its proper context, has seen maganamous changes over the years with the latest to join the bandwagon of course being social media. However, the foundations of communication doesn’t change. It deals with basic human parameters like trust and interactivity.
The reason social media has been gaining momentum the way it has is because it put these two points at the center stage, and as a medium therefore enables better communication. It is not primarily a business medium like newspapers, magazine and to a certain extent blogs have become, but still a communication medium. Therefore I think it extends to beyond business and brands and public relations for public offices. With this in mind I thought if it is possible for say the police force to use the medium to its benefit.
Coming to think of it, they can use it to read WATBlog and thereby this post as a first step perhaps. 
But more importantly, they can carry out their communication needs and have a more interactive relationship with the civilians. Let’s start with Video Sharing – It can easily be turned into a educational effort for citizens regarding various rules and laws that govern the people. They can tie up with schools to have a more interactive video session to teach children traffic rules and discipline for instance. Nothing revolutionary but it puts an always on access resource for people. Police in the state of Virginia in USA in fact use YouTube to upload surveillance video to the website in the hope of generating leads on crimes and criminals.
Talk about blogging and micro blogging. The best way to use blogs seems to be to create one of their own, say the official Mumbai Police Blog. The scope then of course in endless in terms of the posts. Put the change in routes during festivals on the blog, have a round up on the week’s best catch and who worked on them, put a most wanted wall online on the blog sidebar, put announcements up. Of course, the question is who will do all this, but that’s more like a speed breaker than a dead end.
With microblogging its an even more comprehensive scope of affairs. The traffic cops can send out traffic updates on Twitter, other cops can put up a complaint touch point – a Rickshaw decides to take his meter on a faster spin than your ride, tweet the registration number to the cops, put a hashtag #faultymeter. Suspicious stuff lying around, tweet to the police. Passport verification, the cops can tweet what time they’ll arrive.
Surveying the QnA sites like the way they do the streets, would help in getting acheiving a lot of delighted citizens which is good for the brand in general. Take this question for instance, How can we complaint against an X on a QnA site, a police rep replying is authoritative, accurate and in general a pleasant surprise. The brand image will help the law enforcers enforce law better when it calls for citizen discomfort some other time.
Social Networks? Wikis? I frankly don’t know sow to the law can spread its tentacles here. The above examples themselves suggest that the possibilities do reveal quite a few possible permutations. That also suggests that such systems can easily be put to misuse, rather improper use like false alarms, pranks, etc. However, this also suggests the extent to which media can go and how vital a part it can play in communication and building relationships between public entities.
Anything obvious that I have missed out? Are these ideas naive? Got better examples? Are there actual cases of social media being put to use thus that you know? Comment ahead.
