Clayman2023b

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Clayman2023b
BibType ARTICLE
Key Clayman2023b
Author(s) Steven E. Clayman, Heidi Kevoe-Feldman
Title Dispatching First Responders: Language Practices and the Dispatcher’s Operational Role in Radio Encounters With Police Officers
Editor(s)
Tag(s) EMCA, Dispatch, Public safety communications, Police, Two-way radio, Emergency calls
Publisher
Year 2023
Language English
City
Month
Journal Discourse & Society
Volume 34
Number 5
Pages 547-571
URL Link
DOI 10.1177/09579265231164763
ISBN
Organization
Institution
School
Type
Edition
Series
Howpublished
Book title
Chapter

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Abstract

The delivery of emergency services is often contingent on social processes launched when someone calls to request help. While initial encounters between civilian callers and institutional call-takers have been extensively studied, little is known about subsequent encounters between dispatchers and first responders. This paper examines police radio dispatch calls and the language practices enacting the dispatcher’s operational role. It sketches the technological constraints and communicative challenges of the two-way radio medium, and the overall activity structure of radio dispatch. It then focuses on the design of dispatchers’ instructions to officers. The instruction has a recurrent base form but may be expanded with optional material addressing atypical or specialized circumstances. Accordingly, dispatchers are not passive conduits of information transfer; working within the constraints of the radio medium, they elaborate and reframe the available information in ways that triage the problem and aid in its downstream management.

Notes