Crimes, Criminals, and the Monstrous on Social Media

The Norwegian Online Patrols Narratively Navigating Borders of Humanity

Abstract

This article investigates how the Norwegian police’s Online Patrols contribute
to the cultural production of monstrosity through their posts on social media.
Drawing on theories of monstrosity as a shifting moral and cultural category,
the study examines how police communication—though framed as preventive
and informative—implicitly constructs boundaries between humanity and its
monstrous others. The article employs the concept of “implicit narrative,” derived
from Bakhtin’s theory of speech genres, to analyze how police posts implicitly
activate broader cultural scripts. Through a close reading of posts about sexual
predators, hate crime and women’s rights, the article explores different ways that
the police’s social media presence draws from and play into ongoing cultural
negotiations ultimately connected to morality and humanity. By situating police
storytelling within the algorithmically governed and affectively charged landscape
of social media, the article argues that digital policing practices are deeply entangled
with cultural processes of othering. In this context, the law is not only a regulatory
framework but also a narrative device through which monstrosity is constructed,
contested, and circulated.