good day, I am conducting research on media images of (public) social welfare and media reporting of social workers.
Can I ask for links to articles and studies what the media image of social welfare is in other countries?
Is it worse in the opinion of aid workers than in reality?
In Poland, the prevailing perception among social workers is that their media image is unambiguously negative (e.g. helping freeloaders, wrongfully taking children away from their families, lack of help and abandonment), and the media mainly cover this topic in the context of crisis situations.
However, my research (content analysis) shows that the media image of social welfare is more complex and highly polarised. Aid institutions, on the other hand, strongly neglect public relations issues
Dear Michal,
Having recently seen your post, I have some relevant articles or research studies from the United Kingdom to pass on (although you may already be aware of some of them). The first two relate to child protection social work and the following two (my own work) to adoption, (The second of these focuses more specifically on media reporting of the racial politics of adoption).
Maria Leedham (2022) ‘Social Workers Failed to Heed Warnings’: A Text-Based Study of How a Profession is Portrayed in UK Newspapers, British Journal of Social Work 52,2 1110–1128
Warner, J. (2013) ‘“Heads Must Roll”? Emotional politics, the press and the death of Baby P’, British Journal of Social Work. 44 (6) 1137-1153
Kirton D (2018) Still the ‘trusty anvil’?: media perspectives on adoption reform in England, Adoption & Fostering, 42(4), 400-416
(De)racializing ‘common sense’: media perspectives on adoption reform in England, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 43(7), 1208-1226
Lastly I should mention that the British Association of Social Workers has fairly recently created media reporting guidance, details of which and some related material can be found from the following links
https://www.communitycare.co.uk/2023/12/15/social-workers-practice-fear-of-media-survey/
https://www.communitycare.co.uk/2023/04/28/readers-take-negative-media-finley-boden-social-workers/
https://thefrontline.org.uk/blog-post/shifting-the-social-work-stigma-2/
https://www.communitycare.co.uk/2023/04/21/social-workers-urged-to-report-negative-media-coverage-to-union/
I hope some of the above is helpful and good luck with your work.
Best wishes
Derek Kirton
Emeritus Reader in Social Policy and Social Work
University of Kent
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