Media and Social Service : A quantitative study of the representation of the social service in the daily press in the years 1997, 2007 and 2017

The aim of this study was to examine the representation over time of the Swedish social service in the national daily press. More specifically, its aim was to compare the years 1997, 2007 and 2017 and examine any differences and patterns in the reporting due to social changes in society. As this study was based on quantitative content analysis, all articles published in four of the largest national papers during those years, containing the word ”socialtjänsten” [the social service] were read. A code schedule with six themes were made to be used when reading the articles. The themes were: 1) Name of the newspaper. 2) Year of publication. 3) Character of article; news or editorial. 4) Field of social service; e.g. ’child welfare’. 5) Level of analysis; micro, meso or macro. 6) Rating of the social service; positive, negative or neutral. The analysis was based on three media theories; agenda setting, news valuation and framing. As a conclusion the valuation of the social service seems to be pretty much the same over the years; almost two of five articles has a negative valuation of the social service and three of five articles has a neutral valuation of the social service. In relation to that approximately two of one hundred articles has a positive valuation of the social service. Editorial material tends to valuate the social service more negative than news material. The level of analysis seems to have changed to fewer articles on a micro-level in 2017 than in 1997. The five most common fields associated with the social service are youth criminality, child welfare, social service as an organisation, economic aid and migration