Medias granskning av socialtjänsten : - en kvalitativ undersökningen ur ett socialsekreterarperspektiv

Many social services cases have been reviewed in the media during the last years. One of those cases is “Lasse and Karin”, handled by the Social Services in Oskarshamn in 2002. Lasse and Karin had their son taken into custody by the Social Services and the case was reviewed in national media. Through this case the Social Services received much attention, of which most was negative, and their handling of the case was greatly criticized. From this particular case as well as others alike it, our interest developed into this study. This is a qualitative study, based of sex depth interviews with Social Welfare Secretaries in three different municipalities. Our aim with this study is to examine how the Social Welfare Secretaries are influenced by media coverage of their work, focusing on their handling of cases. We also compare how these influences vary between Social Welfare Secretaries who have personal experience of media reviews, and the Social Welfare Secretaries who have not yet been reviewed by the media. The study has a sociological and social psychological perspective. Our purpose with this study is to learn more about how the Social Welfare Secretaries experience the media coverage of social service cases, how the Social Welfare Secretaries relate to media articles and how they, in their occupational role, handle the pressure of being reviewed by media. Some of the people we interviewed have personal experience of media reviews while others only have experienced the reviewing of colleagues through media. The result of the study shows that the Social Welfare Secretaries experience media reviewing as tiring, strenuous and one-sided. Because of this, their trust in the media was low. However, they all agreed that media could be used to promote the Social Services in a positive way.