Online Communication of Public Institutions Before the COVID-19 Pandemic
Online Communication of Public Institutions Before the COVID-19 Pandemic

Summary/Abstract: This paper aims to analyze the online communication methods used by the Romanian Police before the crisis caused by the global pandemic COVID-19 (and the decree on imposing the state of emergency). Among the public institutions, the Romanian Police is one of the most active in its relationship with the public. The image of the Romanian agent has always fluctuated between police officer jokes and stories of street heroes, without ever being able to reach the size of a James Bond persona with the status of a civil servant. In the case of the adoption of communication with the outside world through Facebook by the Romanian police, the analysis showed that before the COVID19 pandemic we could not speak of a fully professional communication strategy. At that time, there were, admittedly, some Facebook pages that correctly defined both their organizational identity and the external procedures for entering into dialogue with others. However, most of the Facebook pages considered in the analysis did not have a professionally constructed identity for the community to which they were addressed. On the other hand, from the perspective of the content strictly related to the activity of the Romanian police, our analysis highlighted the fact that most of the Facebook pages owned by the Romanian police were not able to communicate all types of information specific to their field of interest. From the perspective of our analysis, it is obvious that additional efforts are needed in the future to professionalize public communication for this state institution.

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