THE AMPLIFIER MAGAZINE A Magazine of the Society for Media Psychology and Technology, Division 46 of the American Psychological Association Street Gangs and Social Media: A New Social Problem publisher / May 26, 2016 Christopher J. Przemieniecki Christopher J. Przemieniecki, PhD West Chester University of Pennsylvania CPrzemieniecki@wcupa.edu Street gangs have long been a problem for communities in the United States. Gangs create fear, terrorize neighborhoods, contribute to drug and sex trafficking problem, and recruit youth into crime and violence. While street gangs have been around since the 1800s, the significance of the gang problem did not attract the attention of law enforcement until the late 1970s. By the 1980s and 1990s, places like Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, Detroit and St. Louis were experiencing gang violence at alarming rates. According to the National Gang Center (2015), gang membership has steadily risen since the 1970s, declined in the early 2000s and then slowly increased several years later. Recent reports suggest that gang membership is topping 1 million and that there are over 300,000 gangs across the U.S. (National Gang Center, 2015; Pyrooz & Sweeten, 2015). Traditionally, street gangs recruit new members through word-of-mouth, at school, or convince those who live in a gang-infested neighborhood to join for protection or for social support. However, gangs are increasingly utilizing social media platforms to promote themselves. Street gangs use Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, SnapChat and many other social networking platforms to communicate and proliferate the gang. While research has not supported the premise that gangs are using online sources to recruit new members (Hesse, Przemieniecki, & Carter, 2016), news media outlets continue to feature stories on how gangs recruit online. Story headlines such as “Gangs Turn to Social Networking Sites to Recruit” (Vazquez, 2008) and “Gangs Go to Social Media to Push Brand and Recruit” (Kerr, 2016) give the public a pause for concern. Instead, what gangs are doing online is sharing their exploits, bragging, enticing new members to join, and taunting or disrespecting rival gangs. For example, gang members post pictures of their guns, drugs, and money. They post videos, rap about their exploits and even