Re-enacting Raoul Moat , poor taste or necessary reminder?

Re-enacting Raoul Moat , poor taste or necessary reminder?

Raoul Moat…2010, his frenzy left his ex girlfriend seriously wounded, her boyfriend dead and a policeman disabled ( he later took his own life) all within a week of being released from a light sentence for assaulting his 9 year old child. This reenactment on ITV this weekend invokes mixed feelings. There’s the confusion those who celebrated and continue to celebrate this man invoke. Their parlay is that he is a hero because he announced his intention was to execute police officers ( he indicated he had chosen to kill because he thought his ex girlfriend was dating a policeman). Then there’s the reopening and reawakening of old wounds and trauma for the family of Samantha Stobbart - his ex girlfriend, Chris Brown’s family - Chris was Raoul’s his first target and he was executed in cold blood and PC David Rathband was an opportunistic tager who was disabled after being shot point blank by Moat ( Rathband commited suicide 20 months later) But...
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Digital discourse, Nigerian elections and  tribal affairs- Who are you and Why are you?

Digital discourse, Nigerian elections and tribal affairs- Who are you and Why are you?

In recent months, Great Britain has had a rather tumultuous time. For me the biggest surprise was the resignation of the Scottish prime minister Nicola Sturgeon before I acclimatised to the resignation of the New zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern Politics has never ever been my strongest point, but I felt these two women were representative of the need for women to have meaningful seats in places where it matters. In other british politics, It has felt like there is hope for meaningful intersectionality in leadership of Britain, although I suspect that if anything goes awry with the current PM’s tenure, the brays will inevitably become racial and everything will be reduced to heritage. That said, I am British, as much as I am permitted to be given the persistence of questions like “ but where are you originally from” and the old age “where did your people come from” , which we know are not politically correct but then again, why rob...
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Ethnographies and Soft System Methodologies

Ethnographies and Soft System Methodologies

Work environments are characterised by people doing purposeful activity in  a structured yet dynamic, orderly yet disorderly  environment where there are legislative, procedural, political and social factors that are widely known to influence the design of information systems (IS) and knowledge management (KM) systems for policing work(Stainer, 2013, Hughes and Jackson, 2004). Most workplaces generate significant amounts of data, often collated/acquired from multiple human sources and information systems (IS). Managing the business is as a result, characterised by matching and  aggregating all this information and data to facilitate and make informed best practice decisions (Babuta, 2017). Business leaders will depend on timeliness and robustness of this information to develop efficient and effective strategies. There is a however a complicatedness that arises due to the use of  varied and non-proprietary information systems for managing data and information (De Hert and Gutwirth, 2006).   The ethnographic research methodology is known for 'messiness' (Lanclos, 2016) and characterised by lengthy contact through immersion in the field (workplace) and...
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Diversifying the narrative…. Communications in the face of risks, threats and decision making in policing.

Policing in the face of funding cuts, scrutiny and structural changes with limited availability and access to technologies and manpower has evolved. The demand on policing services has become higher and more diverse with police forces increasingly shouldering the responsibility for health and social demands. Although governed by robust and lengthy frameworks and seemingly supported by ‘adequate’ technologies, the job of assessing risk and making decisions in policing is highly communication and information dependent, complex, multifaceted and challenging. The scope and range of crimes and treatment of crime have changed in the wake of increased levels of police proactivity and awareness. As my doctoral fieldwork has progressed, I have found that the way information is supplied, acquired, shared and used in policing influences and impacts on risk assessment and decision making The use of communication tools and technologies feature heavily in the task of response policing and there is an impact on demands on resources when these tools prove to be...
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Ethnographic intricacies and the valley of ethical approval

In use since the early 19th century, ethnography in the IS field, particularly CSCW and HCI, studies the understanding of the social processes related to creating, introducing and representing information systems as a key means of understanding the way technologies create or alter human activities. Ethnography supports elicitation of knowledge with a level of transparency and broadness that promotes the linkage of data to practices, processes and procedures (Hassan, Mingers, & Stahl, 2018; Horlick-Jones & Rosenhead, 2007) My insights and experiences have been of conducting ethnographies in policing in the West where it enables me to examine the disruptiveness, connectedness, unpredictability and cultures that are associated with technologies including understanding the role of human nature and power shifts (internally and externally) in the process of functional technologies in policing (Greenhalgh & Swinglehurst, 2011; Radovan, 2013). In this article, I have selected some of my experiences as an early stage researcher which I hope will also be relevant to ethnographers such as...
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