2. Many of the following ideas can be
found in detail in:
Franklin & Parton,
1991, Social Work,
the media and public
relations, London,
Routledge.
Ayre, 2001, Child
protection and the
Media: lessons
from the last three
decades, British Journal of
Social Work, 31, 887-901
3. 1. Moral Panics.
2. Political Bias in
the UK Press.
Before we start,
let’s visit two
important
concepts…
4. Stan Cohen’s 1972
analysis of
society/media’s
responses towards
youth cultures. The
theory has been
expanded to cover
shocking and
threatening news
events.
5. A moral panic and creation of a folk
devil involves five stages of
development:
1. Concern – There must be belief that the behaviour of the group or
category in question is likely to have a negative effect on society.
2. Hostility – Hostility towards the group in question increases, and they
become "folk devils". A clear division forms between "them" and "us".
3. Consensus – Though concern does not have to be nationwide, there
must be widespread acceptance that the group in question poses a very
real threat to society. It is important at this stage that the "moral
entrepreneurs" are vocal and the "folk devils" appear weak and
disorganised.
4. Disproportionality – The action taken is disproportionate to the actual
threat posed by the accused group.
5. Volatility – Moral panics are highly volatile and tend to disappear as
quickly as they appeared due to a wane in public interest or news
reports changing to another topic. [Ben-Yehuda & Goode, 1994]
6. The Political Bias of the UK Press
The concepts of ‘Left Wing’ and
‘Right Wing’ contain inherent
values of how individuals should
behave and how society should
be ordered.
Claiming that an idea or
newspaper is ‘right wing’ or ‘left
wing’ necessarily implies that
that idea/newspaper is
associated with certain values
about the individual and society.
Some of those associated values
can be seen in the next slide
9. ‘Making’ the News
News journalists are not in the
business of faithfully recording
the most common events, they are
in the business of finding,
constructing and selling
“news”’.
(Kitzinger in Ayre, 2001:889)
10. Hartley (1985, cited by Franklin and Parton,
1991) found that child abuse used to be
reported primarily as a criminal matter in The
Times newspaper with only 18% of reports
mentioning social workers, but this had changed
to 48% of reports mentioning social work by
1976.
11. Ayre, 2001: Reasons for expansion
1. Awareness of abuse, particularly sexual
abuse is now more widespread.
2. Increase in concern regarding the power and
adversarial nature of statutory child
protection social work.(cf: ‘partnership’).
3. A series of high profile scandals in the 1970’s,
1980’s, 1990’s.
12. “The Unholy Trinity”(Ayre, 2001)
Each
high
profile
scandal
was
followed
by three
events:
1.Aggressive public pillorying in
the mass media to bring
agencies responsible to
account.
2.The publication of evermore
detailed recommendations to
welfare agencies as a result of
public enquiries.
3.Central government issuing
evermore complex guidance to
prevent future occurrences.
13. The media has potential to improve
child protection…
However, while increased media
attention and the three factors of
the Unholy Trinity have potential to
exert positive influence upon child
protection, more often they
continue to introduce unhelpful
biases and misplaced emphasis.
(Ayre, 2001).
14. As a result… (according to Ayre, 2001)
Over the last 3 decades child protection policy and
services have been developed, not in the best
interests of the child, but ‘defensively’; that is to
avoid politicians and senior managers having the
possibility of appearing on the front page of the
national press under headlines such as:
‘Sack her, child abuse
doc must go’ (Sun 7 July 1987)
15. Proportionality? Media coverage has
increased awareness of sexual abuse but, for
most people, the concept tends to be associated
strongly with ‘stranger danger’.
(Kitzinger & Skidmore in
Ayre, 2001:889)
16. Now: A Climate of Blame
Hall et al. (1997) Child
abuse stories were once
represented as crime
stories, following a
standard formula:
Discovery of crime, arrest,
charge, trial, conviction
and sentence.
However, a pervasive
element in British child
abuse reporting now
includes a fault
finding bias along
the lines of ‘how was
this allowed to happen’
17. The media tend to report rare hazards rather than
commonplace events, but in dramatizing such extreme
adversities as child murder, sex rings and social workers
abducting children into care, it encourages the
development of a moral panic, which over-sensitizes
people to the risks involved.
(Aldridge, 1994; Franklin and Parton, (1991; Parton, 1985).
18. Growing Mistrust: Thatcherism; the
Ideals of The New Right in the 1980’s
• Rolling back of the state
• Curbing the states influence on daily life.
• Social services departments served as a metaphor
for everything wrong with public services in
general…
Bureaucratic
inefficient
interfering
Political correctness
leftist dogma
19. In the past, Social Work has not helped
itself…
• Familiar with issues of confidentiality, social
workers and senior managers refused to talk to
the media when child abuse stories broke and
were being investigated.
• This lead to a generally antagonistic relationship
developing between ‘Social Work’ and ‘The
Media’.
• Over the last ten years, various initiatives have
developed to improve the media/social work
relationship in the UK.
20. Social Workers as bullies
‘motivated by zealotry
rather than facts ’(Daily Mail 6 July 1988)
‘seize sleeping
children in the
middle of the
night’ (Sunday Telegraph, 10 July 1988) ‘abusers of
authority, hysterical
and malignant ’ (Daily Mail 7
July 1988)
Franklin and Parton (1991) summarize the
two media stereotypes: Bullies & wimps
21. Such as Cleveland, 1987
• February to July, 121 children living in
Cleveland were removed from their homes by
social service agencies and diagnosed as being
sexually abused.
• There was an over-reliance on medical
evidence (the pencil test).
• Originally sympathetic, the media quickly
shifted to characterising the authoritarian
(bullying) approach of social workers.
22. Social Workers as wimps
‘Like the SAS in cardigans and
Hush Puppies’ (Sunday People 10 March 1991)
‘Naïve bungling,
easily fobbed off’ (Daily Express,
29 March 1985)
‘too trusting with too liberal a
professional outlook’ (Guardian 19 December 1987)
23. Such as the Jasmine Beckford case (1984)
• Jasmine was battered to death by her step-father
Maurice Beckford on 5 July 1984,. At the inquiry,
Jasmine’s social worker (Martin Ruddock, see his
account in Parton & Franklin) said “the family
obviously loved the children” but admitted only
seeing Jasmine once in 10 months, believing the
family’s explanations as to why she was
unavailable. In fact, Jasmine had been locked in a
small bedroom with body-building weights tied to
her broken legs to stop her moving.
24. Conclusions
• Child Abuse stories are striking news.
• These stories sell, because they elicit strong
emotions in readers; revulsion, disgust and
blame.
• These stories used to be reported as crime
stories, but now include a fault-finding bias often
aimed at child protection agencies.
• This fault-finding might assume that if procedures
are followed, child protection deaths are
ultimately preventable.
• Furthermore, working with families (in child
protection) involves elements of uncertainty and
unpredictability…
