Maintaining legitimacy using external communication strategies: An analysis of police-media relations

Police organizations must strategically control their external environment in order to maintain organizational legitimacy. Exploiting their relationship with the news media is one way to accomplish this goal effectively. Despite the documented importance of crime, justice, and social control as a news topic, there is a limited understanding of the variables driving how police and media evaluate this relationship. This study used data collected from a national sample of police media personnel to fill this gap, and concluded that the police and media valued their interdependent relationship, but for different reasons. Police public information officers recognize the power of the media and attempt to use this power to promote the organization. News personnel are satisfied because the police provide data so they can easily produce crime stories. The implications for understanding how police organizations control their external organization are discussed.