Reflection on Social Media Case 6: Basketball Cop

I remember hearing about this story and seeing the videos when it happened. It inspired me then and it still inspires me now. I think it’s awesome that Officer White did what he did, and all of the viral videos and campaigns that resulted from his actions are awesome as well. He understood the “damaged relationship” between cops and youth and wanted to fix that, and help youth be more trusting of cops. I can’t help but think how amazing it would be if all cops were more like Officer White. However, I’m sure that his actions not only inspired everyday citizens of America, but a lot of cops as well. If you somehow missed this story when it happened, SlamOnline does a good job of describing what happened.

I think it’s important to note the positivity of this story and how fast and wide it spread on social media. I like what the police department’s social media manager, Officer Tobias said about his intentions of uploading the video. He said that he wanted to show the Gainesville residents that “… you may see stuff on national news about how bad police are, but this is what we do.” The news is always reporting on negative things, which includes the negative things that cops do. I think that it was so important for this positive interaction between a cop and the youth to spread across social media so that people can see that cops aren’t all bad, like the news tries to portray.

The news does report on bad things that happen the majority of the time and this blog talks about why that is, providing an example of what happened when a news source reported only good news. I think that this is an example as to why social media should be used for good. I’ve always been an optimist and although it is important to keep people informed on bad things that happen (because it can provoke change, and keep people safe) it’s important to talk about the good going on in the world so we don’t become overwhelmed with all the negative.