Sustaining the Reputation of the Sri Lanka Police: Analysis based on YouTube Content

Abstract

Managing reputation is essential for any organization and it becomes increasingly challenging in the modern digitalized communication environment. This is no exception to the police department locally and internationally which has been affected due to the increasing transparency generated through social media proliferation. The increasing number of negative comments to the Sri Lanka Police has brought the intense attention of the majority in the Sri Lankan society. Accordingly, the purpose of this paper is to explore how police officers sustain the reputation of the Police department in their public speeches. In conducting this study researchers have analyzed the video content available on YouTube where the police officers’ speeches are available for the access of the public. The data was analyzed using the thematic analysis method to uncover the favorable and unfavorable factors that influence the corporate reputation of the Sri Lankan police. As per the findings of the study imbalance legitimacy, gender discrimination, and verbal abuse were uncovered as the factors unfavorably influencing to sustain the corporate reputation of Sri Lankan police, The factors favorably influencing the corporate reputation were recognized as community trust, competent communication, and human connection skills. The findings of this study are important to build the reputation of Sri Lankan police and those are useful in crafting a corporate communications strategy to regain and strengthen the reputation among the public.