Social work in the press:

a cross-national study
Introduction
The social work profession has long been concerned
about how it has been pictured in the mass media
(Franklin & Parton, 1991; Gabor, 1990; Hiersteiner,
1998; McGowan &Walsh, 2000). A recent vivid
example in the United States was the furore in social
work circles over the Norm Show (Beaucar, 1999).
Norm, an ice-hockey player, is sentenced to do social
work for not paying his taxes. The show portrayed
social work as a form of community service that
can be done without special training. In the United
Kingdom the profession has been especially troubled
by negative newspaper reporting of scandals
involving alleged neglect of social workers in
protecting children from abuse or their over
zealousness in taking them away from their parents
(Aldridge, 1990; Franklin & Parton, 1991; Franklin,
1998). Indeed, one such scandal, the Cleveland
affair, has been called the most widely reported
story in British post-war history (Franklin, 1998: 6).
The image of social work is not simply a cosmetic
matter. A positive image is important to the vitality
and effectiveness of the profession. The more that
social work is perceived positively, the more likely it
is to gain support for its programmes, to have its
services utilised, to maintain morale, to attract recruits
and to have its voice heard (Kaufman & Raymond,
1996). Although how social work is portrayed in the
media is not the same as how it is perceived by the
public, there is good reason to suppose that the
publics perception is strongly influenced by the
media. Studies have suggested that the great majority
of people have not had contact with anyone whom
they identify as a social worker (Kaufman &
Raymond, 1996; Morris, 1998; Weir, 1981). As a
result, the mass media become a major means of
shaping the publics impressions of social work.
Prior research
There has not been a great deal of study of either the
publics attitudes about social workers or the
professions portrayal in the media. In the USA,
attitudinal studies (Condie, Hanson, Lang, Moss &
Kane, 1978; Kaufman & Raymond, 1996; Roff &
Klemmack, 1983) have suggested that social workers
are seen in a somewhat negative light. The only US
study of social works image in the media that we
could locate was conducted by Davenport and
Davenport (1997a; 1977b), who informally gathered
a sample of 130 items relating to how social workers
were presented in various media over a six-month
period. They found that social work was more often
portrayed positively than negatively. However, the
unsystematic nature of their sample and lack of
rigorous coding procedures and reliability data limited
the usefulness of their results.
There has been more study of the image of social
work in the media in the UK (Franklin, 1998; Franklin
& Parton, 1991; Kitzinger & Skidmore, 1994;
Skidmore, 1995). Perhaps the most comprehensive
was a recent study by Franklin (1998) who analysed
almost 2,000 stories from nine national newspapers
Int J Soc Welfare 2001: 10: 194201
Blackwell Publishers Ltd and the International Journal of Social Welfare 2001.
194 Published by Blackwell Publishers, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden MA 02148, USA
Reid WJ, Misener E. Social work in the press: a cross-
national study
Int J Soc Welfare 2001: 10: 194201 Blackwell, 2001.
This study examined the image of social work in newspapers
in the United States and the United Kingdom. Using the
LEXIS-NEXIS database of full text articles, a sample of 20
constructed weeks were randomly drawn from 60 major
dailies over a four-and-a-half-year period, yielding 399
articles in which reference was made to social work. Ratings
of the image of social work were largely positive in the USA;
in the UK more stories had negative than positive ratings. In
both countries stories about child welfare practice were rated
more negatively than other fields. Positive images of the
profession were most likely to occur in stories in which
social workers were portrayed as experts, presented pro-
gramme innovations, or were described as carrying out
interesting practice activities
William J. Reid, Elizabeth Misener
School of Social Welfare, The University at Albany, State
University of New York
Key words: social-work image, content analysis, newspapers,
the press, the media, cross-national
William J. Reid, School of Social Welfare, The University at
Albany, State University of New York, 135 Western Avenue,
Albany, NY 12222, USA
Email: wreid@albany.edu
Accepted for publication February 15, 2001
over a period of one year. He concluded that . . .
newspaper reporting of social work and social services
is overwhelmingly negative and critical (Franklin,
1998: 5). He also found that most of the stories (67%)
focused on child-related concerns, such as child abuse,
adoption, foster care and group homes. Other areas of
social-work involvement, such as mental health and
gerontology, received very limited coverage in the
papers to the relative neglect of other client groups
(p. 5). This supports the prevailing belief in the British
social-work community that the profession gets
unusually poor news media treatment (Aldridge,
1990).
Present study
The aim of the present study was to provide a
systematic comparison of the image of social work in
US and UK newspapers. It was guided by two specific
questions:
1) Is social work more likely to be portrayed
positively in the US than in the UK press, as
might be suggested by a comparison of the
Davenport and Franklin studies?
2) How does the image of social work vary in both
countries by such factors as field of practice and
social-work role?
Ideally, such a study should not be restricted to
newspapers. Other media types TV, films, radio,
magazines, and the like are certainly important
determinants of the publics image of social work.
However we thought it might make more sense to do a
comprehensive study of one medium than to spread
ourselves over several. The press is still one of our
more influential shapers of public opinion (Gunther,
1998). The readership of newspapers exceeds watchers
of prime-time TV (Newspaper Association of America,
1999). Newspaper reading is positively correlated with
income, education and job responsibility (Galper,
1998). Thus newspaper readers are likely to be over-
represented in groups that control the resources on
which social work depends. Lastly, advances in
electronic technology (discussed below) have made it
much more feasible to study print than visual media.
Method
A computer database, LEXIS-NEXIS, was used to
compile articles containing references to social work.
LEXIS-NEXIS has been utilised in other content-
analysis studies of newspapers (Soothill & Grover,
1997). The strength of LEXIS-NEXIS is that it
presents full articles from major English-language
daily newspapers from the United States, Canada, the
United Kingdom and elsewhere.
Sampling
The LEXIS-NEXIS database contains 60 major daily
newspapers in the USA and the UK. The population of
the study consisted of articles appearing between 1
January 1995 and 30 June 1999. Articles were drawn
from constructed week samples, four for each year of
the study. The four constructed weeks consisted of a
random selection of four Sundays, four Mondays, etc.,
for the year. In content analysis studies of newspapers,
the use of constructed weeks has been shown to be
superior to using simple random or consecutive day
samples (Riffe & Aust, 1993; Riffe, Lacy & Fico,
1998; Lacy, Robinson & Riffe, 1995). One reason for
this superiority is that a constructed-week sample
accounts for the variations in the content in a
newspaper over the course of a week.
The sample comprised all articles that contained the
following key words: social work, social worker,
social workers, casework, caseworker and case-
workers. We eliminated articles in which key words
occurred in contexts that would have no consequences
for the image of the profession for example, the
identification of a lottery winner as a social worker.
Our sample of twenty constructed weeks yielded 399
articles, 258 from US newspapers and 141 from the
UK press. A limitation of the sample is its under-
representation of regional newspapers.
Variables
From a review of prior research and of articles not
included in the sample, we identified and coded a
number of variables that appeared to be important in
assessing how social work was portrayed. The
independent variables comprised the country in which
the story was published, type of story, field of practice
and role of social worker. The dependent variables
consisted of an overall rating for the image of the social
worker presented in the story, the story headline and
type of story. The dependent variables merit comment.
Overall image. An overall rating of social works
image in each article was the major dependent variable
of the study. Ratings were made on a 10-point positive
to negative scale. Coders were instructed to rate from
the standpoint of how an average reader might view
the image presented. Anchoring illustrations for the
more positive end of the scale included social workers
as being helpful to people, initiating new programmes
or serving as experts. Mid-range examples included
factual reports in which social workers were identified
as well as stories containing off-setting mixes of
positive and negative elements for example, an
article in which social workers were portrayed as not
accomplishing desired goals but still doing the best
they could under adverse circumstances. Lower ratings
Social work in the press
Blackwell Publishers Ltd and the International Journal of Social Welfare 2001 195
were illustrated by stories of social workers being
described in pejorative terms, such as being neglectful,
na ve, ineffectual, over-zealous or bureaucratic.
Headline. A headline has importance apart from the
content of the story. The headline may be the only
item read or may make more of an impression than the
content. The headline, which was coded before the
article was read, was given one of three values:
positive, neutral or negative. Anchoring illustrations
followed the types used above. An additional code
specified whether or not social work was mentioned in
the headline.
Type of story. To appear in a paper a story has to be
newsworthy. Why it may be so is important in image
assessment. As we all know, newspapers thrive on
bad news. For the image of social work a common
type of bad news is what we coded as a scandal,
such as a story blaming a social worker for recom-
mending release of a psychiatric patient who went on a
rampage after leaving the hospital. However,
newsworthiness may also be found in articles that
convey a positive image of social work. Categories of
articles likely to be positive included human interest
stories about social workers in helpful roles, accounts
of new social work programmes and reports of research
studies or commentary by a social worker in the role of
an expert. Type of story was seen as serving not only as
a dependent variable (e.g. scandals versus more
positive stories) but also as a way of describing how
the profession is being portrayed in the press.
Coding and reliability
Two coders, both social-work doctoral students, coded
the articles. A 20% sample was coded independently
by both coders for reliability purposes. (One of the
coders was familiar with the prior research reviewed
earlier; the other was not.) A third independent coder
settled disagreements. The reliability of the one
continuous variable used in the analysis the overall
image of social work was tested through a correla-
tion (r 0.75). For nominal variables, inter-rater
reliability was computed using percentage of agree-
ment and Cohens Kappa (1960). The following values
(percentage of agreement followed by Kappa) were
obtained: headlines 85%, 0.762; social worker in
headline 100%, 1.00; role of social worker 72%,
0.693; field of practice 73%, 0.764; type of story
73%, 0.596.
Results
US and UK: overall image of social work
When ratings of overall image were compared for the
two countries, sizable differences were obtained. For
the USA the mean rating was 6.45 (with 10 as the most
positive) and for the UK, 4.83 (p<0.001, t-test). The
differences become more dramatic when comparisons
are made using a categorical version of the scale
(clearly negative 13; neutral, 46; clearly positive
7 and above). For the USA ratings were clearly
positive for the majority (58%) of the articles with
only 13% receiving negative ratings. For the UK the
picture was somewhat the reverse: a higher percentage
of articles was rated as clearly negative (30%) than
positive (13%). Analysis of headlines yielded another
striking difference. In both countries approximately a
fifth of the headlines mentioned a social work
identifier in the title. In the US articles, almost half
these headlines (47%) presented a positive image of
social work, whereas the image was negative in only
about a quarter (26%). In the UK only 20% of the
headlines presented a positive image, whereas the
image was negative in 80%; none was rated as neutral.
Field of practice
Research in the UK (Aldridge, 1990; Franklin, 1998)
has suggested that practice activities in certain fields,
child welfare in particular, are more likely to be
portrayed negatively than others, and US observers
have noted the horror stories about child-welfare
practice in the USA (McGowan & Walsh, 2000).
However, variations in social work image by field have
not been systematically examined in either country.
Table 1 presents mean overall image ratings by
fields of practice and country. The classification of
fields was derived from the stories. The table presents
fields that had more than ten stories in either country.
As can be seen from the ANOVA statistics, field of
practice is a significant source of variation in social
work image in both countries.
In the USA, the fields with the most positive images
were health/ageing, education, mental health and
family services. (A mean of 7 or more in our 10-point
scale, would, as noted above, be an indicator of a
clearly positive rating.) For these fields from 7390%
of the stories were given clearly positive ratings. Three
fields had images noticeably lower on the scale: child
welfare, corrections and substance abuse, although the
latter two had very small sample sizes. The relatively
poor image for child welfare conforms to the
expectations discussed above yet even here stories
with clearly positive images (32%) exceeded those
with clearly negative ones (29%).
In the UK, as in the USA, mental health was among
the fields with the most positive image, and child
welfare was among those with the worst. The biggest
point of difference between the two countries was in
the family service field, which is perhaps the one with
the least cross-national comparability for example,
Reid & Misener
196 Blackwell Publishers Ltd and the International Journal of Social Welfare 2001
family services are more likely to be public in the UK
than in the USA.
The inter-country differences in image ratings
favour the USA across all fields of practice except
substance abuse. In this field, as well as in corrections,
comparisons between the two countries are not very
meaningful given the small US sample sizes. The
higher percentages of stories in these fields for the UK
may reflect differences between the two countries in
either how social workers are distributed or labelled.
Even when these fields were excluded from the
analysis, the USA still surpassed significantly the UK
in ratings of social work image (ANOVA, p<0.001).
Role of social worker
Another likely source of variation in image might be
the role of the social worker in the stories. Again we
developed a classification of roles from the stories
themselves. Principal categories were: direct helper
(e.g., a social worker is portrayed as helping someone
in need); investigator (e.g., an article about social
workers investigating alleged abuse); monitor (e.g., a
story about an offender committing a crime while
under the supervision of a social worker). Other
categories included social workers as advocates,
educators, administrators and community organisers.
As might be expected, roles were not evenly
distributed across fields of practice. For example,
roles of investigator and monitor accounted for the
majority of stories about child welfare practice and
were much less frequently found in other fields.
Nevertheless, these roles occurred in all fields.
As Table 2 shows, the role receiving the most
negative image is that of monitor, with investigator a
close second. As with fields of practice, social work
image is pervasively negative for the UK, even when
the story is about a social worker as a helper. For the
USA no role falls below the mid-point of the scale.
The finding helps specify the results regarding field of
practice. When the story is about a child welfare social
worker in a monitoring role, the image portrayed is
likely to be clearly negative (in the 13 range) on both
sides of the Atlantic. In the US 46% of the stories with
this combination portray social work negatively. In the
UK the corresponding percent is 69%. In these stories
social workers are frequently viewed as being
neglectful or making poor judgments regarding
children under their care. At the other extreme, the
role of educator receives the most positive image in
both countries, and in the UK is the only role in which
positive ratings predominate. Reasons for educators
making the news included commentary as experts and
stories about studies or social work programmes in
which they were involved.
Type of story
In both the USA and UK, as expected, ratings for type
of story varied significantly (ANOVA, p<0.001). The
principal source of variance was the scandal story,
which produced the lowest image ratings (USA, 4.7;
UK, 4.1). Certain types of stories were the source of
almost uniformly positive images in both countries.
The main cluster comprised articles in which social
workers were cited as experts about a topic, pieces
about programme innovations and profiles of social
workers e.g. stories about interesting practice
activities of particular social workers. In the two
remaining principal types of stories social work as a
profession and administrative/legislative develop-
ments ratings were generally neutral and positive
in the USA; in the UK negative ratings for these
stories were more frequent than positive ones.
Table 1. Mean ratings of social work image by country and fields of practice.
USA UK
Mean SD N % Mean SD N %
Child welfare 5.3 2.1 76 30 4.5 1.9 38 27
Family services 7.0 2.0 26 10 4.3 1.0 6 4
Mental health 7.2 1.8 20 8 6.0 1.7 3 2
Health/ageing 7.5 1.41 20 8 5.3 1.7 14 10
Education 7.4 1.3 19 7 5.7 2.8 6 4
Youth services 6.2 1.8 13 5 3.9 2.1 8 6
Corrections 5.0 0.00 3 1 4.2 2.1 13 9
Substance 4.5 5.0 2 0.8 4.9 1.3 13 9
Other 6.5 1.9 29 11 5.1 2.1 8 6
Not identified 7.1 1.3 50 19 5.3 1.6 32 23
Total 258 100 141 100
ANOVA df Mean F Sig.
Square
Country 1 89.92 27.49 0.000
Field 9 17.21 5.27 0.00
Country x field 3.90 1.19 0.297
Error 379 3.27
Social work in the press
Blackwell Publishers Ltd and the International Journal of Social Welfare 2001 197
In addition the distribution of type of story varied
significantly between the countries
2
= 49.5, 9 df.
p<0.001). Scandals, the single largest category of
story in both countries, were far more pervasive in the
UK (59% of the stories) than in the USA (30%). Social
workers were often portrayed as the villains in such
stories, although in some cases emerged with positive
images for example, as heroic professionals trying to
undo wrongs caused by others. In the USA about a
fifth of the scandal stories produced positive images
for social work; in the UK only 4% did so. The cluster
that produced positive ratings in both countries (social
workers as experts, programme innovations and
profiles) were far more common in the USA (47%)
than in the UK (13%).
Country, field of practice and role
So far we have considered separately the effects of
three independent variables country, field of practice
and role of the practitioner on social work image. In
Table 3 these variables, which were dummy coded, are
combined in a multiple regression analysis, using
forced entry of the variables. Country (USA versus
UK) emerges as the strongest predictor (beta 0.38).
Child welfare (versus other fields) and the role of
monitor (versus other roles) also have significant
betas. Another role variable investigator versus other
roles did not prove to be significant. The findings
suggest that country, practice field and role variables
each make a significant independent contribution to
how the image of social work is rated.
Discussion
The most striking finding of the study is the difference
between the UK and the USA in respect to how social
work is portrayed in the press. Social work does
appear to have a serious image problem in the UK
press. At the same time, our results suggest that the US
press treats social work much more kindly. For the
most part, the profession is presented in a positive
light. The findings support the results of the Franklin
study (1998) and provide an initial look at how social
work is viewed in the US press.
Unfortunately our data do not have much to say
directly about why the UKUS differences occur. One
line of thought is stimulated by the British literature on
the negative treatment social work receives from the
press. In this literature there is a good deal of
preoccupation with a number of notorious scandals
involving child maltreatment in which social work was
portrayed negatively the Maria Colewell case, the
Beckford trial, the deaths of Kimberly Carilile and
Tyra Henry, the Cleveland affair and so on (Aldridge,
1990; Franklin & Parton, 1991; Franklin, 1998). Such
cases became national news, often with numerous
follow-up stories, much to the dismay of the British
Table 2. Mean ratings of social work image by country and roles of social worker.
USA UK
Mean SD N % Mean SD N %
Direct Helper 6.7 2.00 82 32 4.7 2.0 35 25
Investigator 5.5 2.10 38 15 4.4 1.3 18 13
Monitor 5.0 2.10 39 15 4.1 2.0 24 17
Advocate 7.4 1.30 5 2
Educator 7.7 0.96 36 14 6.8 2.5 9 6
Administrator 7.3 1.30 7 3 4.5 1.7 19 14
Community organiser 7.6 1.10 7 3
No role specified 6.2 1.50 30 11 5.3 1.1 32 23
Multiple roles/other 8.0 0.00 14 5 7.1 1.7 4 4
Total 258 100 141 100
ANOVA df Mean F Sig.
Square
Country 1 93.57 30.35 0.000
Role 9 22.80 7.39 0.000
Country x role 7 5.29 1.72 0.104
Error 381 3.08
Table 3. Multiple regression analysis of predictors of image.
Variable I S.E t Probability of t
Country (USA) 1.676 0.194 0.382 8.623 0.000
Field of practice (Child welfare) 0.773 0.266 0.168 2.904 0.004
Role of Social Worker (Monitor) 1.278 0.284 0.222 4.494 0.000
Role of SW- (Investigator) 0.546 0.345 0.090 1.584 0.114
(Constant) 5.272 0.168 31.310 0.000
Multiple R 0.505, R
2
0.255, Adjusted R
2
0.247
Reid & Misener
198 Blackwell Publishers Ltd and the International Journal of Social Welfare 2001
social work community. There is nothing analogous in
the USA. The death of an abused child in Indianapolis
is not likely to become national news. This may be
because the USA is a much larger country, its
newspaper system is more likely to keep local news
local and there is probably a greater amount and
variety of florid violence to occupy the attention of
journalists. US child abuse horror stories, at least
those that have involved social workers, have tended
to remain local news, soon overshadowed by mass
murders and the rest.
The press attention to such notorious child
maltreatment stories in the UK may have fostered a
journalistic propensity to view social work in a poor
light, as a convenient subject for the kind of bad
news that the press relishes. This tendency may have
been reinforced by the conservative stance of the
British press, which, according to some British writers
(e.g. Franklin, 1989; Jones, 1996), has been strongly
biased against social workers, who it has seen as
agents of the despised welfare state. Referring to the
press use of such stories, Aldridge (1990) has
commented:
Given such sources, the tendency to make sense
of new events with old paradigms pulled from the
cuttings library, other colleagues and the recesses of
sub-editors consciousness is inevitable. Even the
Guardian has admitted slapping an inappropriate
The Social Worker Dunnit [headline] on a story
(pp. 5960).
It is also possible that some of the disparity between
the USA and the UK may be accounted for by
differences in the nature of social work between the
two countries. In the USA, compared with the UK,
educational qualifications for social workers have
traditionally been higher and there has been greater
stability in qualifications used to define professional
social work (Jones, 1996). Moreover, in the USA there
are greater proportions of social workers in private
agencies, mental-health and private family-service
settings and in independent practice. In the USA, in
contrast to the UK, there is a sizeable professional body
with doctorates in social work and strong professional
organisations (Jones, 1996). Given these differences,
journalists in the USA may be more likely than their UK
counterparts to see social work as a profession and be
clearer about lines of demarcation between professional
social workers and others. For example, in the UK
child-welfare scandals, some of the social workers
seen at fault might have been childcare workers or other
ancillary personnel, a distinction perhaps more likely to
be made in the US press. Also with its academic body,
strong professional organisations and perhaps other
resources, social work in the USA may be in a better
position to create positive stories.
Differences between US and UK social work in
respect to fields of practice and roles may also have
had an influence. Although the press image of social
work in the USA surpasses that of the UK
controlling for field of practice and role the overall
magnitude of the discrepancy may be in part a function
of differences between the two professions in respect
to these variables. Thus in the USA almost a fifth
(18%) of the stories related to mental health and
family services, both fields with relatively high US
ratings. In the UK the picture was quite different: only
2% of the stories were about mental health, which also
had relatively high ratings; 4% were from the family
services, which had relatively low ratings and which,
as noted, were more likely to involve public agencies
than in the USA. In both countries the social work role
receiving the most positive image rating was educator,
often a faculty member providing expert opinion or the
results of a research study; the USA had relatively
more such stories (14%) than the UK (6%).
However, these theories provide, at best, a tentative
and partial explanation of a complex phenomenon that
probably involves geographical, societal, cultural and
other differences between the two countries.
Additional research involving other countries might
shed additional light on cross-national differences.
For the USA, the study provides some new findings
about the image of social work in the press. Contrary
to the beliefs of some, social work does not have a
particularly bad press, especially when we consider
that most occupations get their knocks from the papers
when things go wrong. We are all familiar with stories
about trigger-happy police, malpractising physicians,
dishonest judges, incompetent teachers and the like.
How social works image compares with these other
occupations is open to conjecture.
The single most common story about social work
has to do with direct-service practitioners carrying out
some form of positive helping activity, perhaps in
articles about interesting cases, new programmes,
profiles of individual social workers or the profession
generally.
However, stories may differ considerably in their
impact on readers. A positive story about a new foster-
care programme may be less likely to catch the readers
eye, or may have less of an impact, than a story
involving a social worker being tried for negligent
homicide in the death of an abused child. That as many
as 13% of the stories in the US sample convey clearly
negative images is a matter of concern. We have no
way of knowing to what extent the numerical weight of
the good news offsets or softens the bad. Unfortunately,
social work does not often produce positive stories that
have the same attention-grabbing quality as its worse
negative ones. We have nothing comparable to the first
successful heart transplant.
Social work in the press
Blackwell Publishers Ltd and the International Journal of Social Welfare 2001 199
Another consideration has to do with the kind of
newspapers sampled. Our sample was limited to major
urban dailies, which became in effect regional
newspapers in the USA (which, with the arguable
exception of the New York Times, lacks a true national
newspaper) and regional and national newspapers in
the UK. Small town or local newspapers might have
presented somewhat different images of social work.
Moreover, the local press might possibly have a
greater impact on readers than regional or national
presses. There is a need for studies that would compare
images of social work found in presses of different
scope as well as for studies of the impact such images
have on readers.
Implications
What implications do the results have for social
works age-old efforts to develop a better image? The
findings have pinpointed some configurations of
factors that have a relatively high probability of pro-
ducing negative stories. For example, the confluence
of a particular field of practice child welfare and of
a particular role monitoring provides the most
fertile ground for such stories. Thus social workers
who supervise cases involving parental abuse may be
pictured as negligent in not having removed children
who have been harmed. In some situations this criti-
cism may be deserved, but an understanding by jour-
nalists of some of the complexities and uncertainties
involved in such monitoring might result in better
balanced reporting with less finger-pointing at social
workers. Relevant background information might be
conveyed to journalists through their training pro-
grammes, their professional journals, contacts at key
newspapers and the like. Attempts might be made to
instigate feature stories describing the realities of work
in child-welfare settings, which might inform not only
journalists but the public at large.
Characteristics of stories likely to yield positive
images particularly in the USA have also been
identified. Social work activities in mental health
would be one example, particularly in the USA, in
which it is the numerically dominant profession
(ONeill, 1999). Other examples would be stories in
which social workers are featured as experts or are
profiled, and stories about innovative social work
programmes.
Through its public relations arms and other units,
social work could take steps to get its good news
into print. The National Association of Social Workers
(USA) maintains a volunteer panel of experts for use
by the media. More initiatives of this kind could be
undertaken. For example, reporters like to have
contacts to whom they can turn for side bars to
current news stories. Social workers can initiate such
contacts. More generally, articles about innovative
programmes or about interesting practice activities of
particular social workers (profiles) could be developed
in co-operation with journalists looking for
newsworthy stories.
To take another example, newspapers often go to
universities for expertise. Schools of social work could
provide names of their own experts to their univer-
sitys public-relations departments or other units that
may have contact with the press. In addition, schools
could develop internships that might involve jour-
nalists and social work students working together an
intriguing example of such an internship has been
reported by Loflin (2001).
As noted in our introduction, initiatives to improve
social works image in the press need not be seen as
window-dressing, but rather as part of maximising the
professions effectiveness. Indeed, such initiatives can
be directly tied to an important social work function
to educate the citizenry about the needs of its clientele.
Brawley and Brawley (1999) have called for social
work to form a partnership with the mass media to
increase public understanding of social justice issues.
As they argue, prejudice, class divisions and
misconceptions can affect reporting of such problems
as crime, drugs and mental health. Thus inner city
minority groups may be stereotyped as drug cultures
and the mentally ill as violent, to the neglect of a
realistic appraisal of their needs. The strategies and
techniques which Brawley and Brawley (1999)
advocate that social workers use including
cultivating and working with media personnel, writing
stories or columns for local newspapers, appearing as
experts in the press and on talk shows, preparing and
distributing news releases and publicising advocacy
efforts would simultaneously improve social works
image in the media and enhance public understanding
of the needs of the populations that the profession
serves.
References
Aldridge M (1990). Social work and the news media: A
hopeless case? British Journal of Social Work 20: 611625.
Beaucar K (1999). NASW News, 44(6): 4.
Brawley EA, Martinez-Brawley E (1999). Promoting social
justice in partnership with the mass media. Journal of
Sociology and Social Welfare 26: 6387.
Cohen J (1960). Statistical power analysis for the behavioral
sciences. New York, Academic Press.
Condie CD, Hanson JA, Lang NE, Moss DK, Kane, RS (1978).
How the public views social work. Social Work 23: 4752.
Davenport J, Davenport J (1997a). Image better than we think.
Unpublished paper.
Davenport J, Davenport J (1997b). Social workers: Fad-chasing
jackasses or still on the side of angels? The New Social
Worker 4: 1112.
Franklin B (1989). Wimps and Bullies: Press reporting of child
abuse. In: Carter P, Jeffs T, Smith M eds. Social work and
Reid & Misener
200 Blackwell Publishers Ltd and the International Journal of Social Welfare 2001
social welfare yearbook, No. 1, pp. 114. Milton Keynes,
Open University Press.
Franklin B (1998). Hard pressed. London, The Manson Group,
Reed Business Information.
Franklin B, Parton N (1991). Social work, the media and public
relations. London, Routledge.
Gabor P (1990). Developing the child and youth care profession
through effective use of media. Child and Youth Services 13:
199213.
Galper J (1998). You read it here first. American Demographics
20: 4648.
Gunther A (1998). The persuasive press influence: Effects of
mass media on perceived public opinion. Communication
Research 25: 486504.
Hiersteiner C (1998). Saints or sinners? The image of social
workers from American stage and cinema before World War
II. Affiliate Journal of Women and Social Work 13: 312
326.
Jones C (1996). Social work in Great Britain: Surviving the
challenge of conservative ideology. In: Hokenstadt MC,
Khinduka SK, Midgley J, eds. Profiles in international
social work, pp. 4457. Washington DC, NASW Press.
Kaufman A, Raymond T (1996). Public perceptions of social
workers: A survey of knowledge and attitudes. Arete 20(2):
2535.
Kitzinger J, Skidmore P (1994). Playing safe: Media coverage
of child sexual abuse prevention strategies. Child Abuse
Review 4(1).
Lacy S, Robinson K, Riffe D (1995). Sample size in content
analysis of weekly newspapers. Journalism and Mass
Communication Quarterly 72(2): 336345.
Loflin K (2001). Social work and the news media: Exploring
the possibilities. Chapel Hill, North Carolina, University of
North Carolina School of Social Work. Unpublished
Manuscript.
McGowan BG, Walsh EM (2000). Policy challenges for child
welfare in the new century. Child Welfare 79: 1127.
Morris B (1998). Fighting back. Insight (November 22).
Newspaper Association of America (1999). Facts about
newspapers 1998. http://www.naa.org/
ONeill JV (1999). Profession dominates in mental health.
NASW News 44: 1, 8.
Riffe D, Aust FA (1993). The effectiveness of random con-
secutive day and constructed week sampling in newspaper
content analysis. Journalism Quarterly 70(Spring): 133
139.
Riffe D, Lacy S, Fico F (1998). Analyzing media messages:
using quantitative content analysis in research. Mahwah,
NJ, L. Erlbaum.
Roff L, Klemmack D (1983). Attitudes toward public welfare
and welfare workers. Social Work Research and Abstracts
19: 2930.
Skidmore P (1995). Telling tales: Media power, ideology and
the reporting of child sexual abuse in Britain. Crime and the
media: The post-modern spectacle, Pluto. London, D. Kidd-
Hewitt & R. Osborne.
Soothill K, Grover C (1997). Research note: A note on
computer searches of newspapers. Sociology 31(3): 591
596.
Weir S (1981). What do people think about social work? New
Society 7: 216218.
Social work in the press
Blackwell Publishers Ltd and the International Journal of Social Welfare 2001 201