Social media as a tool for fostering police-citizen relations – a study of Facebook communication of Dutch police departments in Amsterdam.

Abstract

Police departments increasingly leverage social media as a tool to foster citizen relations, but empirical insight into how specific attributes of police-generated content influence public engagement remains limited. This study examines the use of Facebook by 17 Dutch police teams in Amsterdam. Based on a multimethod approach, this study explores the effects of content type, message purpose, and emotional content on different dimensions of citizen engagement (i.e., likes, comments, and shares). The results showed Informative posts were more likely to attract likes, whereas interactive content was more effective at prompting user comments. Posts featuring animals or pets, as well as those focused on community engagement, were the most engaging overall. Emotional content had a more limited effect: posts with negative emotional expressions received more comments than neutral ones, whereas positively framed posts received significantly fewer likes. These findings offer practical implications for police social media strategies by showing how transparency, responsiveness, and relatable content can collectively support public engagement, trust, and perceived legitimacy.