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Frontline Professionals in the Wake of Social Media Scrutiny

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How does social media scrutiny affect the accountability of frontline professionals?

Image courtesy of interviewee. December 6, 2024

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This video discusses the concept of bottom-up scrutiny, highlighting a shift from traditional top-down accountability (from regulatory bodies or managers) to public scrutiny through social media. This video allows customers and the general public to hold companies and workers accountable for their actions. The discussion references notable movements, such as Me Too, demonstrating how private information can become public, leading to significant social change.

The author also examines the challenges faced by 911 professionals, who are scrutinized by the public in ways that can lead to increased tensions. The scrutiny often arises when the public's definition of an emergency does not align with institutional definitions, resulting in accountability actions that may unfairly target low-powered frontline workers instead of higher-ups. The methodology includes qualitative and quantitative approaches, such as participant observations and data analysis.

Overall, the text argues for the need for a more nuanced understanding of scrutiny, emphasizing that while public scrutiny can yield positive changes, it can also lead to adverse consequences for vulnerable professionals. The findings suggest a disconnect between public expectations and institutional definitions, highlighting the complexities involved in personal accountability and the emotional toll on those in frontline roles. This video advocates for more private deliberation over public shaming to address these challenges effectively.

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Here are five key points from the video:

1. **Shift from Top-Down to Bottom-Up Scrutiny**: The video discusses a significant shift in how scrutiny is applied to organizations, moving from a traditional top-down approach (by regulatory agencies and managers) to a bottom-up approach where customers and the general public use social media to hold companies accountable.

2. **Impact of Social Media on Accountability**: The emergence of social media has transformed how information, especially regarding misconduct (e.g., the Me Too movement), spreads and garners public attention, leading to increased accountability and sometimes positive societal change.

3. **Challenges of Public Scrutiny for Frontline Workers**: The scrutiny faced by emergency call takers (9-1-1 professionals) highlights tensions in public perceptions of what constitutes an emergency. Often, these workers become targets of public criticism despite being low-powered individuals themselves, leading to increased pressures and changes in their operational practices.

4. **Consequences of Over-Categorization of Emergencies**: Due to public scrutiny and the pressure to respond to complaints, 9-1-1 call takers increasingly categorize non-emergencies as emergencies, resulting in resource allocation issues and delays for actual emergencies, strained relationships between emergency services, and inefficient responses.

5. **Need for Deliberation in Defining Emergencies**: The video argues that while public scrutiny can sometimes lead to positive change, there should be careful consideration of how definitions of emergency situations are challenged in public forums. Engaging in private discussions may provide a more constructive avenue for addressing complex issues without escalating hostilities directed at vulnerable frontline workers.

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Here are some key quotes from the video you , which illustrate the main ideas and themes:

1. **Public Scrutiny**: "What we mean is that the customers of a product or a service or the general public could actually scrutinize, criticize a company or their workers, to be like more accountable."

2. **Shift in Scrutiny**: "Traditionally, we have observed that scrutiny has been done top down... So the big shift that we have seen is when the public themselves try to scrutinize."

3. **Impact of Information Going Public**: "The minute it becomes online... it galvanizes a lot of momentum and emotional resonance, and that creates some positive change."

4. **Negative Aspects of Public Scrutiny**: "Public social media platforms are probably not great devices to do... it gets like pretty nasty."

5. **Vulnerability of Targets**: "The targets of the scrutiny often be... low-powered frontline professionals... who are in a vulnerable situation, a lot of times, racialized minorities or women."

6. **Role of 9-1-1 Call Takers**: "The reason I studied them was they acted as an interface between the outside world and the organization... understanding better what kind of complaints the public is bringing to the table."

7. **Methodology**: "My methodology is more index two qualitative. I generally use index two field-based methods... combining it with some more quantitative methods."

8. **Consequences of Public Scrutiny**: "Once the callers could directly complain... sometimes they would name and shame the call takers."

9. **Resource Allocation Issues**: "What happened... is sometimes these low-level calls... all the resources are allocated to those... it creates like some kind of a resource lock."

10. **Broader Police Reform Convideo**: "If you're thinking about police reform... how do we disentangle these."

11. **Public Scrutiny's Dual Nature**: "The argument of the paper is not that public scrutiny... is bad... but there are other aspects that we have to pay attention to."

12. **Vulnerability of Frontline Workers**: "The targets of scrutiny... oftentimes it doesn't happen."

These quotes encapsulate the key points discussed in your video regarding the nature, consequences, and implications of public scrutiny, particularly focusing on the dynamics of accountability and the experiences of frontline workers.

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By bottom up scrutiny.

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What do we mean is that, could be the customers

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of a product or a service

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or the general public could actually scrutinize criticize

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a company or their workers, to be like more accountable.

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Uh, traditionally what we have observed is that historically

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that has been done,

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the scrutiny has been done top down, right?

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Either regulatory agencies or journalists

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or their own immediate managers.

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So the big shift, what we have seen is that, when,

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through bottom up scrutiny when, the customers

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or the public themselves try to scrutinize,

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on some instances when there are pockets

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of private information that goes public, that

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that becomes public knowledge.

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I mean, think about the, you know, the me too movement

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and, episodes of sexual harassment, right?

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Uh, those, like, there are, like, it's not

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that those are like, you know, completely unknown,

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but they remain more as like, you know, open secrets.

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People know it privately,

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but the minute it becomes online, through like one

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of these social media platforms, it galvanizes a lot

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of momentum and emotional resonance.

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Uh, right? And that creates some positive change.

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Uh, but, that is with respect to,

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private information becoming public

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or common knowledge where it creates like more positive

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impact, increased accountability as,

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as we have seen some evidence.

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But there are other instances, as I cover in my paper,

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looking at the scrutiny

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or by the public of 9 1 1 professionals.

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So these are, emergency call takers.

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Uh, those instances get a lot more, a lot more fraught

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with tensions, in part

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because they're not, they're not trying

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to make some public private information public,

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but they're actually challenging the very definition

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and the meaning of what constitutes an emergency.

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And what we find is that couple of things, one, public,

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social media platforms are probably not great devices to do

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that, to engage in this redefinitions

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of a particular phenomenon.

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So there, it, it gets like pretty like, pretty nasty.

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The second part is that the targets of the scrutiny

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often be, are actually not hypo actors.

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They are also like low powered

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frontline professionals, right?

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Who gave, who becomes a target of the public wrath.

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It's actually another person who's a lot more in a

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vulnerable situation, a lot, lot of times,

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racialized minorities or women, right?

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So that's the, the broad, looking at both the positives

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of bottom up scrutiny, but also the negative aspects

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of it ended up studying the 9 1 1 professionals,

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nine one one call takers, essentially that's in the us.

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Uh, the reason I studied them was they acted

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as like an interface between the, the outside world

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and the organization, right?

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Like I call them as frontline

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professionals or frontline workers.

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And, looking at

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that interface helps us understand better on what kind

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of complaints that public is bringing to the table.

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What happens when they file those complaints more privately,

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through like some kind

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of an organizational channel versus publicly

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through airing it through social media platforms.

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Uh, my methodology is more in index two qualitative.

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I generally use, index two field-based methods, like,

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trying to do participant observations, listening

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to the 9 1 1 calls myself, interviewing,

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the call takers,

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and combining it with some more like quantitative methods,

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like, you know, scraping data from the social media

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platforms, large scale data analysis

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of nine one one call logs.

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So that's generally been my method.

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Broadly trying to study, what happens before and

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after a certain incident goes, viral

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or public through social media, complained by one

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of the 9 1 1 callers or some other kinds of scrutiny.

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How do the call takers reacted, afterwards.

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And, it, before, because I went and even

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before all these scandals emerged, I was able

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to actually compare how were they doing their work

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before, when a certain scandal goes online

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through social media, how were they categorizing the call?

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So that was my key unit of analysis.

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And what happened when something went, public, like

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through a scandal emerged.

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How did their work practices change on the ground?

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The call takers, where they being more risk

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averse, risk taking.

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What the nine one one call takers do, is that, think

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of them as like they do the function of triaging, right?

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That's their main, like a triage nurse in the hospital.

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They'll try to figure out

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what is actually a serious emergency,

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a 9 1 1 level emergency.

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And there are some internal definitions of what

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that is like agreed by the city,

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and they're like, emergency services.

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So what are some of the basic things that,

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would fall under that criteria?

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Uh, and then there are other agencies, like there is 3 1 1

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for more lower level,

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not even emergencies, but issues, right?

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There's a porthole in front of your, home.

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Uh, so what happened was, the call takers,

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they were scrutinized by their immediate supervisors,

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9 1 1 supervisors like regularly.

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That's the process, on

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how are they categorizing the calls?

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Are they, are they not like, you know, trying

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to be too risk averse

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and categorize most things as emergencies,

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but also they're evaluated based on how do they talk

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to the callers, right?

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Because the callers, I mean, if they're calling 9 1 1,

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because they probably have one of the worst days

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of their life probably.

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So therefore, the supervisors actually evaluate them

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on these two criteria.

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How are they categorizing the calls?

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Are they categorizing it properly?

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And how are they talking

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to the callers in terms of the demeanor?

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Are they making sure that the caller is like, you know,

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they're not like tense, collect more,

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relevant information.

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So that's how they did their work before, right?

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And wait, there are of course mistakes that do happen,

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but by and large, these are the two criteria

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that they themselves feel, you know,

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that's some important, and they're kept accountable

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by the supervisors for that.

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The once like social media enters into the picture,

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and once the callers could directly complain, you know,

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sometimes they would name

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and shame the call takers saying,

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this person did not categorize my call as an emergency.

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Or sometimes, there are options.

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Now if you're using a smartphone

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to record the calls automatically

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and post parts of that online saying, look at

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how the call taker interacted with me as a caller,

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I'm facing an emergency.

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The issue happens. The issue, what happens is

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that the call is definition of what an emergency is,

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need not overlap or do not align with what the institutional

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or definition of 4 9 1 1 emergency is.

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And in the paper we talk about several

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examples of that, right?

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Uh, so as these like incidents, like happened

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frequently at one point there was a major scandal about the

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9 1 1, but also the police department,

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the 9 1 1 folks were not the ones that did any mistake.

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Like after, like they investigated,

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it was now not their issue, but

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because how quickly these things happen online, right?

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Criticisms, naming, naming

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and shaming, all kinds of other sort of vitriol,

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the organization was forced.

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The 9 1 1 director, the, the 9 1 1 organization was forced

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to take an action just to pacify the social media public.

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So they had to actually do some,

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punitive actions on the call takers

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and dispatchers involved that sort of created some kind

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of a negative emotions among the call takers.

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So what they did was they tried

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to over categorize 9 1 1 calls in, in,

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comparatively speaking, as compared to what they used to,

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they categorizing a lot of calls as

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emergencies when if you objectively look at it

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and categorize them, they are not.

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So it's almost like a 25 to 30% increase in,

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how calls were categorized, even low level emergencies

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or non 9 1 1 level emergencies.

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And as you imagine, what are the downstream consequences

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of a lot more calls are categorized as an emergency.

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It creates like some kind of a resource lock by law.

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If the call taker categorize something as an emergency

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or the dispatcher sends it out, the officers have

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to go like, you know, that's all,

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like not just officers like ambulances

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or fire, personnel, they have to go.

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So what happened, as you could imagine, is like sometimes

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these low level calls,

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all the resources are allocated to those, right?

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I mean, by low level calls that I talk about, a lot

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of examples in the paper, my kitchen sink, is like,

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you know, leaking and dust.

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I lost my apartment key.

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So those are all so, such types

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of calls at some point we are actually categorized

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as 9 1 1 emergencies.

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So there, like it actually logged up the resources.

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There's some kind of resource constraint.

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Uh, so that's one, right?

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Like the higher priority emergencies,

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like your cardiac arrest

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or some ac like severe accidents, you didn't have resources.

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There's a delay in how fast like,

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first responders could get to the same, that's one.

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The second is more like, interprofessional, right?

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Give, between the police officers and the 9 1 1 folks.

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Uh, so the police felt that, my God, like we've been sent

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to all these calls that, that like, you know,

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that's not our mandate.

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Uh, so they were like a lot of, a lot of like negative,

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emotions between the two departments.

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A lot of bad blood, the relations got strained.

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Uh, so that's the second consequence.

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The more broader consequences.

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If we think about police reform in the us,

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that's a very big topic.

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Uh, right? So if you're thinking about reducing,

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or at least like making sure that for the low level

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issues like homelessness

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or people strolling on the streets,

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or mental health issues, right?

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Uh, the idea is like we send, social workers

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or like other medical, mental health professionals

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who are more qualified, more trained

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to deal these issues, right?

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So that's the broader initiative.

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But if you combine that initiative with

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what is going on, right?

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It is very difficult to avoid.

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You keep, still keep sending police to all kinds of issues,

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even the ones that police themselves don't want to go,

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that creates a lot of other issues, right?

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Uh, so I think that's the broader consequence.

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If you're thinking about police reform, we have

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to think in terms of how do we disentangle these.

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The argument of the paper is not that public scrutiny by

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and large through social media is bad.

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As we have seen many instances it is good,

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but where I see the, the differences, if it is the use

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of social media is used to as a device to

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make like private information, pub public, right?

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Pockets of private information.

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Again, the Me Too moment is a great example, right?

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Public,

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and then like people galvanize around that,

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that creates some kind

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of a positive change in many instances.

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Whereas, one of the arguments is,

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and it is more like a speculation than like,

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based on like complete robust results, a speculation is

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that perhaps like these,

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social media platforms are not great devices to do,

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you know, challenging some kind of a definition

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of a situation as I call it, a definition of

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what an emergency is, definition of what?

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Like a, this happened even during covid time, right?

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Uh, when a lot of people are complaining about the triage

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nurses and using social media, similar processes,

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naming and shaming them.

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So perhaps like, trying to challenge some

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of the definition of, phenomenon.

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Social media might not be great devices.

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That's where we need some kind of deliberation, private

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or semi-private deliberation

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where we could engage in those discussions meaningfully

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without trying to sort of, you know, pile upon each other

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and criticize each other.

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So I think that is the, the second, sort of implication

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how it was not challenging prior research per se,

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but saying that there are like other aspects that we have

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to, pay attention to

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and more so who are the targets of the scrutiny.

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That's the other aspect that I wanted

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to highlight through this research.

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The targets of scrutiny, a lot

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of times we see are actually also like other folks

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who are quite like, you know,

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structurally vulnerable too, right?

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Like a lot of frontline workers

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and retail stores, hospitals,

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the triage nurses I talked about in my case, the 9 1 1,

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professionals.

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So I think that's the second aspect on let's look at,

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you know, who's the target of scrutiny law.

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We think that the powerful actors are the ones

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that we are trying to, you know,

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keep accountable the CEOs or the directors.

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But oftentimes it doesn't happen.

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Like we use it almost as public.

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And I include myself there as you know, I'm trying

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to do good, but we are not thinking

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who is actually the target of that?

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Who, what kind of emotional

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and other impacts that person suffers in the process.

Shifting Dynamics of Public Scrutiny

00:00:00 - By bottom up scrutiny. What do we mean is that, could be the customers of a product or a service or the general public could actually scrutinize criticize a company or their workers, to be like more accountable. traditionally what we have observed is that historically that has been done, the scrutiny has been done top down, right? Either regulatory agencies or journalists or their own immediate managers. So the big shift, what we have seen is that, when,

00:00:35 - or the public themselves try to scrutinize, on some instances when there are pockets of private information that goes public, that that becomes public knowledge. I mean, think about the, you know, the me too movement and, episodes of sexual harassment, right? those, like, there are, like, it's not that those are like, you know, completely unknown, but they remain more as like, you know, open secrets.

00:01:04 - but the minute it becomes online, through like one of these social media platforms, it galvanizes a lot of momentum and emotional resonance. right? And that creates some positive change. but, that is with respect to, private information becoming public or common knowledge where it creates like more positive impact, increased accountability as, as we have seen some evidence. But there are other instances, as I cover in my paper, looking at the scrutiny

Public Scrutiny and the Vulnerability of Frontline Emergency Call Takers

00:01:36 - So these are, emergency call takers. those instances get a lot more, a lot more fraught with tensions, in part because they're not, they're not trying to make some public private information public, but they're actually challenging the very definition and the meaning of what constitutes an emergency. And what we find is that couple of things, one, public, social media platforms are probably not great devices to do

00:02:08 - of a particular phenomenon. So there, it, it gets like pretty like, pretty nasty. The second part is that the targets of the scrutiny often be, are actually not hypo actors. They are also like low powered frontline professionals, right? Who gave, who becomes a target of the public wrath. It's actually another person who's a lot more in a vulnerable situation, a lot, lot of times, racialized minorities or women, right? So that's the, the broad, looking at both the positives

00:02:41 - of it ended up studying the 9 1 1 professionals, nine one one call takers, essentially that's in the us. the reason I studied them was they acted as like an interface between the, the outside world and the organization, right? Like I call them as frontline professionals or frontline workers. And, looking at that interface helps us understand better on what kind of complaints that public is bringing to the table. What happens when they file those complaints more privately,

Methodology for Analyzing 9-1-1 Call Takers' Response to Public Scrutiny

00:03:12 - of an organizational channel versus publicly through airing it through social media platforms. my methodology is more in index two qualitative. I generally use, index two field-based methods, like, trying to do participant observations, listening to the 9 1 1 calls myself, interviewing, the call takers, and combining it with some more like quantitative methods, like, you know, scraping data from the social media platforms, large scale data analysis

00:03:44 - So that's generally been my method. Broadly trying to study, what happens before and after a certain incident goes, viral or public through social media, complained by one of the 9 1 1 callers or some other kinds of scrutiny. How do the call takers reacted, afterwards. And, it, before, because I went and even before all these scandals emerged, I was able to actually compare how were they doing their work

00:04:17 - through social media, how were they categorizing the call? So that was my key unit of analysis. And what happened when something went, public, like through a scandal emerged. How did their work practices change on the ground? The call takers, where they being more risk averse, risk taking. What the nine one one call takers do, is that, think of them as like they do the function of triaging, right? That's their main, like a triage nurse in the hospital.

Defining Emergency Calls: Criteria and Accountability

00:04:45 - what is actually a serious emergency, a 9 1 1 level emergency. And there are some internal definitions of what that is like agreed by the city, and they're like, emergency services. So what are some of the basic things that, would fall under that criteria? and then there are other agencies, like there is 3 1 1 for more lower level, not even emergencies, but issues, right? There's a porthole in front of your, home. so what happened was, the call takers,

00:05:18 - 9 1 1 supervisors like regularly. That's the process, on how are they categorizing the calls? Are they, are they not like, you know, trying to be too risk averse and categorize most things as emergencies, but also they're evaluated based on how do they talk to the callers, right? Because the callers, I mean, if they're calling 9 1 1, because they probably have one of the worst days of their life probably. So therefore, the supervisors actually evaluate them

00:05:47 - How are they categorizing the calls? Are they categorizing it properly? And how are they talking to the callers in terms of the demeanor? Are they making sure that the caller is like, you know, they're not like tense, collect more, relevant information. So that's how they did their work before, right? And wait, there are of course mistakes that do happen, but by and large, these are the two criteria that they themselves feel, you know, that's some important, and they're kept accountable by the supervisors for that.

Public Scrutiny and Its Impact on 911 Call Takers

00:06:20 - and once the callers could directly complain, you know, sometimes they would name and shame the call takers saying, this person did not categorize my call as an emergency. Or sometimes, there are options. Now if you're using a smartphone to record the calls automatically and post parts of that online saying, look at how the call taker interacted with me as a caller, I'm facing an emergency. The issue happens. The issue, what happens is

00:06:51 - need not overlap or do not align with what the institutional or definition of 4 9 1 1 emergency is. And in the paper we talk about several examples of that, right? so as these like incidents, like happened frequently at one point there was a major scandal about the 9 1 1, but also the police department, the 9 1 1 folks were not the ones that did any mistake. Like after, like they investigated,

00:07:23 - because how quickly these things happen online, right? Criticisms, naming, naming and shaming, all kinds of other sort of vitriol, the organization was forced. The 9 1 1 director, the, the 9 1 1 organization was forced to take an action just to pacify the social media public. So they had to actually do some, punitive actions on the call takers and dispatchers involved that sort of created some kind

Over-Categorization of 911 Calls: Impacts on Emergency Response Resources

00:07:56 - So what they did was they tried to over categorize 9 1 1 calls in, in, comparatively speaking, as compared to what they used to, they categorizing a lot of calls as emergencies when if you objectively look at it and categorize them, they are not. So it's almost like a 25 to 30% increase in, how calls were categorized, even low level emergencies or non 9 1 1 level emergencies. And as you imagine, what are the downstream consequences

00:08:29 - It creates like some kind of a resource lock by law. If the call taker categorize something as an emergency or the dispatcher sends it out, the officers have to go like, you know, that's all, like not just officers like ambulances or fire, personnel, they have to go. So what happened, as you could imagine, is like sometimes these low level calls, all the resources are allocated to those, right? I mean, by low level calls that I talk about, a lot

00:09:01 - you know, leaking and dust. I lost my apartment key. So those are all so, such types of calls at some point we are actually categorized as 9 1 1 emergencies. So there, like it actually logged up the resources. There's some kind of resource constraint. so that's one, right? Like the higher priority emergencies, like your cardiac arrest or some ac like severe accidents, you didn't have resources. There's a delay in how fast like, first responders could get to the same, that's one.

Strained Relations: Police and 911 Response Challenges

00:09:35 - Give, between the police officers and the 9 1 1 folks. so the police felt that, my God, like we've been sent to all these calls that, that like, you know, that's not our mandate. so they were like a lot of, a lot of like negative, emotions between the two departments. A lot of bad blood, the relations got strained. so that's the second consequence. The more broader consequences. If we think about police reform in the us,

00:10:05 - right? So if you're thinking about reducing, or at least like making sure that for the low level issues like homelessness or people strolling on the streets, or mental health issues, right? the idea is like we send, social workers or like other medical, mental health professionals who are more qualified, more trained to deal these issues, right? So that's the broader initiative. But if you combine that initiative with

00:10:37 - It is very difficult to avoid. You keep, still keep sending police to all kinds of issues, even the ones that police themselves don't want to go, that creates a lot of other issues, right? so I think that's the broader consequence. If you're thinking about police reform, we have to think in terms of how do we disentangle these. The argument of the paper is not that public scrutiny by and large through social media is bad. As we have seen many instances it is good, but where I see the, the differences, if it is the use

Public Scrutiny and the Complexities of Accountability

00:11:12 - make like private information, pub public, right? Pockets of private information. Again, the Me Too moment is a great example, right? Public, and then like people galvanize around that, that creates some kind of a positive change in many instances. Whereas, one of the arguments is, and it is more like a speculation than like, based on like complete robust results, a speculation is that perhaps like these,

00:11:42 - you know, challenging some kind of a definition of a situation as I call it, a definition of what an emergency is, definition of what? Like a, this happened even during covid time, right? when a lot of people are complaining about the triage nurses and using social media, similar processes, naming and shaming them. So perhaps like, trying to challenge some of the definition of, phenomenon. Social media might not be great devices. That's where we need some kind of deliberation, private

00:12:12 - where we could engage in those discussions meaningfully without trying to sort of, you know, pile upon each other and criticize each other. So I think that is the, the second, sort of implication how it was not challenging prior research per se, but saying that there are like other aspects that we have to, pay attention to and more so who are the targets of the scrutiny. That's the other aspect that I wanted to highlight through this research. The targets of scrutiny, a lot

Redefining Accountability: The Vulnerability of Frontline Workers

00:12:45 - who are quite like, you know, structurally vulnerable too, right? Like a lot of frontline workers and retail stores, hospitals, the triage nurses I talked about in my case, the 9 1 1, professionals. So I think that's the second aspect on let's look at, you know, who's the target of scrutiny law. We think that the powerful actors are the ones that we are trying to, you know, keep accountable the CEOs or the directors. But oftentimes it doesn't happen.

00:13:23 - And I include myself there as you know, I'm trying to do good, but we are not thinking who is actually the target of that? Who, what kind of emotional and other impacts that person suffers in the process.

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