The advancement and proliferation of smart devices have ramped up tendencies for people to take sides on issues in society, but at the same time the range of side effects disrupting public debate has grown. Such side effects include targeting, intentionally disrupting conversations, extreme language, trolling and disinformation.
This trend was observed in the analysis of the operating environment of public debate, published by the National Police Board.
The analysis indicates that the reliability of social media has suffered as a consequence of unpredictability and undesirable side effects, and users now tend to withdraw into restricted groups or services and use automatically deleted cached content. At the same time, society at large is becoming increasingly polarised, both geographically and in terms of opinions.
“However, this trend is balanced by a continuing trust in traditional media, which are considered an important channel for general information, particularly in the case of newspapers,” says Chief of Analysis Juha Syrjä from the National Police Board.
Goal: to identify the impacts of phenomena on public safety and on police work
The analysis now published is the second part of a set of analyses of the operating environment conducted by the National Police Board. The first was an analysis of crime, published in summer 2019.
The present analysis addresses phenomena and trends in public debate and their impacts on public safety and the anticipation of security needs.
“The purpose of analyses of the operating environment is to identify megatrends, trends and weak signals in society that are relevant for the operations of the police. This increases our awareness of the operating environment and thus supports intelligence-led police operations,” says Syrjä.
The present analysis discusses the key channels in public debate, the impacts of technological changes, side effects that have a negative impact on public debate, megatrends shaping public debate, and the significance of public debate for police work.
“Citizens appear to be interested in crime statistics and the operating environment information of the police. We embrace the principle that development of intelligence-led police work includes transparent distribution of information, unless confidentiality dictates otherwise,” says Syrjä.
The analysis of the operating environment of public debate can be found on the website of the Police (in Finnish)
Key crime statistics, updated on a monthly basis, can also be found on the website. These can be viewed nationally, by police department, by municipality and analysed by the gender and age distribution of suspects and injured parties.
