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As the police move further into areas of traditional journalistic practice, the ‘unhappy marriage’ between the police and the media becomes more complex. To what extent this symbiotic relationship has allowed for transparency has varied over time, subject to political, operational and technological change. While acknowledging the police premium on access to information, this relationship is further challenged by police oversight bodies, the spread of corporate mangerialism and media decentralisation. Through qualitative interviews with Australian police, crime, court and investigative journalists, we provide a fresh perspective on this relationship from the journalists' point of view. In particular we explore the impact of digital media, social media and mobile technology on this relationship integral to maintaining public confidence in the police. This research serves as the basis for further interrogation into police perceptions of the role of the media and how an increasingly mediated public sphere is influencing public confidence in the police. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The risk society thesis suggests that risk thinking has, in the twenty-first century, become pervasive across numerous organisations, including police. Police are now one of a number of agents that put themselves forward as expert advisers on risk reduction and management techniques. Police organisations not only govern through risk logics and make claims to special expertise in risk management, communication and reduction; they are also increasingly governed by risk logics that, amongst other things, circumscribe what information can be released to the media and public, when, by whom, and to what ends. Based on qualitative research interviews with police communications professionals in Australian policing organisations, this paper argues that risk as an organising logic has strongly influenced the nature of contemporary police/media/public communications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As social media becomes firmly entrenched in professional communication practice, organizations need to consider the efficacy of their overall media praxis. Within this context, this article investigates the stakeholder communication practices of two of the most important arms of the justice system: the police and the courts. Focusing on the Australian condition, while also providing international comparisons, this paper draws on historical, sociocultural, and legal developments by the communication departments of these two sectors to identify fundamental differences in their development, motivations, and objectives, which, in turn, have placed them in vastly different positions for the transition to social media. Finally, in determining their place within the field of democratic communication practice, it positions courts and police within Habermas' schemas of communicative and strategic action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]