SOCIAL WORKER PERCEPTIONS OF THE PORTRAYALOF THE PROFESSION IN THE NEWS AND ENTERTAINMENT MEDIA:AN EXPLORATORY STUDY

Carole B. ZugazagaAuburn University

Raymond B. SuretteUniversity of Central Florida

Monica MendezUniversity of Central Florida

Charles W. OttoUniversity of Central Florida

This exploratory study describes social workers' perceptions of the depiction of

the social work profession found in the news and entertainment media. A ran-

dom sample of 665 MSW social workers who were members of the Florida

Chapter of the National Association of Social Workers were surveyed regarding

how they felt the profession was depicted in the news and entertainment media

on a set of paired adjectives comprising 9 semantic differential scales. Findings

showed that these social workers perceived the profession to be depicted nega-

tively in both news and entertainment media. Implications for social work edu-

cators are discussed.

IN RECENT YEARS, social Workers have been fea-

tured on prime dme television shows such as

Judging Amy and Norm that display the

extremes of the mass media portrait of social

workers. The ABC sitcom. Norm (now in

reruns), featuring a "social worker" as the

central character, began airing in the spring of

1999. This sitcom instigated immediate reac-

tion among professional social workers. Social

work Web sites were electrified with com-

ments, most highly negative, about this por-

trayal of a social worker ("Members Say,"

1999). The character Norm, as portrayed in the

sitcom, was presented as a hockey player who

worked as a "social worker" in a form of com-

munity service for conviction of tax fraud. He

was given the choice of going to jail or becom-

ing a "social worker." Many professional

social workers were outraged at the mockery

of the profession created by this sitcom.

On the positive end of the media portrait

of social workers, the series Judging Amy, also

debuted in 1999 on CBS and featured a child

welfare worker as a main character. In this

program, the social worker portrayed many of

the qualities endorsed by the social work pro-

fession such as compassion and integrity. This

series presented a more positive depiction of

Journal of Sociai Work Education, Vol. 42, No. 3 (Fall 2006).Copyright © 2006 Council on Social Work Education, Inc. Ali riglits reserved. 621

622 JOURNAL OF SOCIAL WORK EDUCATION

social workers to the public and has beenpraised and supported by the National Asso-ciation of Social Workers (NASW) (Tower,2000).

The social work profession has long beenconcerned with how it is portrayed in themedia (Frariklin & Farton, 1991; Gabor, 1990;McGowan & Walsh, 2000). The social workprofession should indeed be concerned withits portrayal in the media as retention, fund-ing, and recruitment have been shown to beinfluenced by the media. Research studies inthe Uruted Kingdom (UK) reveal that the con-stant criticism and misrepresentation of socialservices demoralizes social workers (Franklin,1998). In a survey of 3,000 social work profes-sionals in the Uruted Kingdom, 92% thoughtthat staff morale was damaged by the way themedia reports on social care ("Social WorkersWary," 2005). In addition, media representa-tion of the social work profession has animpact on the conduct and professional prac-tice of social work and influences the publicesteem in which social workers are held. Byinforming and influencing the mood of publicopinion, media representation ultimatelyaffects social policy concerning social services,social workers, and their clients (Franklin,1998). In general, media coverage often influ-ences the prioritizing of resources withinsocial service agencies most often in favor ofchild protection services to the comparativeneglect of other social concerns (Franklin,1998). Avoiding becoming the next case high-lighted on the front page of the newspapercan be a powerful influence on the provisionof social services.

Of particular concem to social work edu-cators is the media's influence on recruitment

of social work students. Jennifer Bernard ofthe Central Council for Education andTrairung in Social Work attributes the fall innumber of social work students in the UnitedKingdom in part to social work's poor image("As Drop in Social Work Students Accel-erates," 1998). Further, 80% of 3,000 socialworkers surveyed by Community Care in2005 thought that recruitment and retention ofstaff in the UK was exacerbated by the waythe media reports on social care ("SocialWorkers Wary," 2005).

A positive image is important to the vital-ity and effectiveness of the social work profes-sion (Reid & Misener, 2001), especially in lightof studies which have shown that most peopledo not engage in personal contact with profes-sional social workers. A 1981 survey of 994people within Great Britain (Weir, 1981) foundthat 29% of the sample had come into contactwith a social worker. Of these 29% the con-tacts occurred in the following forms: work(26%), volimtary work (8%), going to see asocial worker (19%), social worker visitedthem (35%), or social worker visited an ac-quaintance (6%). An additional study con-ducted by the Camden Social ServicesDepartment (located in the United Kingdom)during 1988 revealed that only 2% of the pop-ulation ever met a social worker (Morris,1988). Therefore, the other 70-98% of the pop-ulation in the United Kingdom relies on whatthey read in newspapers, see on television, andhear by word of mouth for their informationand opinions about social services (Franklin,1998). As the functions and the roles of socialworkers in the United Kingdom and theUnited States are similar, UK data implies thatthe majority of US citizens will also not have

SOCIAL WORK PORTRAYAL IN THE MEDIA 623

direct contact with a social worker. As a result,the relationship between the media and socialwork cannot be ignored.

Media Depictions of theSociai Work Profession

Limited research is available regarding therelationship between the profession of socialwork and the media. Much of the availableresearch focuses on how the public viewssocial work (Condie, Hanson, Lang, Moss, &Kane, 1978; Kaufman & Raymond, 1996;LeCroy & Stinson, 2004; Reid & Misener,2001), not on how social work professionalsview their media portrayal. It has long beenbelieved within the social work professionthat social workers are inaccurately depictedin both the news and entertainment media.According to Josephine Nieves (1997), formerexecutive director of NASW, "Little troublesprofessional social workers more than theless-than-accurate image the public seems tohave of our profession, acquired unfairly andbased on misinformation" (p. 2).

In an effort to substantiate this belief,NASW commissioned a series of focus groupsto explore the relationship between socialworkers, the general public, and the media("Ferceptions of Frofession," 2004). Theresearch was conducted in March 2004, usingeight focus groups held in Anaheim, CA,Atlanta, GA, and Baltimore, MD. Six of thefocus groups were composed of members ofthe general public; three groups were madeup of people age 25-49 and three of peopleage 50-76. The remaining two focus groupswere conducted using social workers as par-ticipants. Findings from the focus groups withmembers of the general public revealed that

"Most participants had not had direct experi-ence with social workers, and that the generalpublic's knowledge about and image of socialworkers are shaped primarily through themedia, through both news and entertairunent("Ferceptions of Frofession," 2004, p.8). Otherfindings include that "News stories aboutchild welfare play a prominent role in shapingthe image of social workers, social work isstrongly identified with the government, andsocial workers work primarily with the poor,the less privileged, or those without access toother resources (some believe that people withgreater resources would look to psychologists,psychiatrists, or family physicians to helpsolve their problems)" ("Ferceptions of Fro-fession," 2004, p. 8). In addition, the researchalso showed that attitudes among the generalpublic toward social workers was very posi-tive on the whole, despite the public's aware-ness of negative stories about child welfarecases. Findings from the focus groups con-ducted with social workers revealed thesesocial workers believe the profession's publicimage is negative and that the public has amisperception about the profession ("Fercep-tions of Frofession," 2004).

As stated previously, social workers' per-ception of how the profession is depicted inthe media is related to the recruitment offuture social workers to the profession."Social work students have often expressedconcem with their professional image, espe-cially as portrayed by the media, via televi-sion, film, and print. The prevailing view fre-quently voiced by students, as well as educa-tors and practitioners, is that we are typicallyfeatured in unflattering, negative terms suchas child snatchers, ineffective do-gooders.

624 JOURNAL OF SOCIAL WORK EDUCATION

fuzzy-thinking liberals, parasites on the publicpurse, and self-serving bureaucrats" (Daven-port & Davenport, 1997, p. 11). Social workpractitioners and educators have a duty toinform the public about social issues as well asto debxmk myths when the public is misin-formed about the profession and the peopleserved by it (Tower, 2000). Moreover, practi-tioners and educators are responsible forteaching students to shape the public image ofsocial work through effective use of popularmedia rather than relying on people outside ofthe profession to portray it fairly (Tower, 2000).

It has been argued that there is reason forsocial workers to be concerned about theirimage because depictions in shows like Normepitomize the massive public misunderstand-ing about who social workers are and whatthey do (Gibelman, 2000). In an effort to betterunderstand the relationship between the pro-fession of social work and the media, theresearch presented in this article empiricallyexplores the perception held by social work-ers, of the media image of the social workprofession.

Literature Review

The belief that the social work profession getsunusually poor news media treatment isdescribed as common among social workersin Britain (Aldridge, 1990). According toAldridge (1994), the management and staff ofBritish social service agencies are convincedthat their portrayal in the news media—particularly the press—is uniquely poor amongoccupations, although the evidence for thisbelief is far from conclusive. Aldridge (1994)concedes that social work press is not uni-

formly negative, and that positive coverage ofsocial work does occur, especially in localmedia. Regardless of the circumscribed cover-age of social work, the discussion of the newsmedia "problem" is a recurring theme in theBritish social work press. A British profession-al magazine. Community Care, interviewedsocial service staff in 1989 and found that 90%thought that the public's attitude towardsocial work was the same or worse than it hadbeen 3 years before. Study findings revealedthat of those maintaining that social work'sstanding had declined, 93% blamed the press(Aldridge, 1990).

There has been more study of the mediacontent regarding the image of social work inthe United Kingdom than in the United States(Aldridge, 1990; Franklin, 1998; Franklin &Farton, 1991). In one of the earliest studies.Franklin (1998) analyzed nearly 2,000 newsstories from nine national newspapers in theUnited Kingdom, published between July 1997and June 1998, that addressed social servicesand social work. Franklin classified eachreport as expressing attitudes toward socialservices and social work as "beneficial," "fac-tual," or "adverse." Reports were classified as"beneficial" if they actively supported orendorsed social services; "factual" if they nei-ther actively supported nor criticized socialservices; and "adverse" if they actively criti-cized social work or social services. Franklin(1998) found that 64% of the tabloid newspa-per coverage was adverse and 49.1% of thebroadsheet newspaper coverage was adverse.He concluded that "newspaper reporting ofsocial work and social services is overwhelm-ingly negative and critical" (p. 5).

SOCIAL WORK PORTRAYAL IN THE MEDIA 625

In the United States, Davenport andDavenport (1997) used a convenience sampleover a 6-month period in 1992 to conduct acontent analysis of different sources of media,examining the number of times social work orsocial workers were mentioned. Theseauthors reviewed seven state, local, or nation-al newspapers (e.g.. The Wall Street Journal, theSt. Louis Post-Dispatch, and the Columbia

Tribune); several news/business magazines(e.g.. Time, Newsweek, Forbes); "Women's"magazines (e.g., Redbook, McCall's, Cosmo-politan), "Men's" magazines (e.g.. Esquire,GQ); and watched a "fair amount" of televi-sion, especially news programs, documen-taries, political talk shows, and regular talkshows such as Oprah and Montel Williams.The authors found social work or social work-ers were mentioned 130 times and 86% werepositive. Social workers were seen as doing agood job, viewed as experts, or quotedbecause of their professional status. Theyfoimd that 3.8% were negative (i.e., socialworkers made a mistake, were unethical, etc.),and 3.1% were neutral (i.e., social worker usedin obituary), and 6.9% were questionable (i.e.,could have been seen as positive or negativedepending on the perception of the reader/viewer / listener).

Two years later, Davenport and Daven-port (1997) replicated their earlier study for a6-month period from 1994 to 1995, and foimdthat social work or social workers were men-tioned 191 times. Consistent with their previ-ous study, the authors found that the over-whelming majority of references to socialwork were still positive, although the percent-age dropped from 86% to 74%. Negative com-

ments remained around 4%, but questionableones increased from around 7% to 13%, whileneutral comments increased from arovmd 3%to around 9%. Unfortxmately, story promi-nence was not reported, so it was not knownif negative stories, though fewer in number,were more likely to be lead or front-pagenews. As a result of these findings, the authorsconcluded that overall, the news and enter-tainment media depict a positive portrayal ofthe profession. They concluded that most ofthe negative and questionable remarks camefrom conservative politicians and writers whodislike social workers because they dislike amajor role for government in society. Theyposit that the profession of social work willprobably never be loved by everyone becauseof partisan philosophical differences on the roleof government involvement in social services.Findings from this study are however, limitedby the unscientific sampling methodology,lack of rigorous coding procedures, and lackof information concerning reliability (Reid &Misener, 2001).

Reid and Misener (2001) conducted amore rigorous, scientific cross-national studyof the image of social work in newspapers inthe United States and the United Kingdom.Using the LEXIS-NEXIS database of full textarticles, a sample of 20 weeks was randomlydrawn from 60 major newspapers over a4-1/2-year period. The authors found 399 arti-cles that made reference to social work. Ofthese, ratings of the image of social work weremore positive in the Uruted States than in theUnited Kingdom. In both countries, storiesabout child welfare were found to be morenegative than any other area of practice.

626 JOURNAL OF SOCIAL WORK EDUCATION

Fositive images of the profession were morelikely to be found in articles where socialworkers were portrayed as experts, present-ing program innovations, or depicted as car-rying out interesting practice activities.

More recently. Freeman and Valentine(2004) investigated the image of the socialwork profession portrayed in film. Their find-ings, from an analysis of 44 movies from 1938to 1998, demonstrated that in nearly all casesthe depiction of the profession was negative."If people believe what they see in the movies,social workers are mostly women, mostlyWhite, middle-class, heterosexual; they most-ly work in child welfare, are likely to be in-competent, have a tendency to engage in sex-ual relationships with clients, mostly workwith people living in poverty, and mostlyfunction to maintain the societal status quo"(Freeman & Valentine, 2004, p. 159).

Overall, existing literature indicates thatthe social work profession in the United Statesis depicted negatively in the entertainmentmedia and more favorably in the news media.No information is available regarding nega-tive versus positive story prominence orplacement. More sigruficantly, the views ofsocial workers about the media's portrait oftheir profession remain largely unknown.Ironically, while the general public has beensurveyed regarding their view of the profes-sion of social work, social workers themselves(in the United States) have not been askedabout their perception of the media image ofthe profession. In an effort to better describethe perceptual state of social workers regard-ing their media image; this research exploressocial workers' perceptions of the professionin both the news and entertainment media. As

exemplified by the polarized positive andnegative images of social work represented inNorm and Judging Amy, it is of interest todetermine how practicing social workers per-ceive their media portrait.

Method

In the fall of 1999, a survey was mailed to astratified random sample of 1,500 membersfrom the Florida Chapter of NASW. The sur-vey packet included a Florida NASW coverletter, a self-addressed stamped postcard, anda self-addressed stamped envelope. The self-addressed post card contained the members'names and addresses. When returned, thecard was used to ascertain which membershad returned the survey and which did not.Because a second, follow-up mailing was to beused, members were asked to return the post-card separately in order to maintain surveyanonymity and to prevent these membersfrom being sent a second survey. For the firstmailing, 1,500 surveys were sent out and 548usable surveys were returned (36.5%). A sec-ond mailing was sent out to the remaining 936members who had not returned postcards. Forthe second mailing, 267 surveys were returned(28.5%) for a total final response rate of 54.3%(N=815). The general purpose of the surveywas to obtain career and salary information ofthe Florida NASW members. Because the re-search was focused on practicing mainstreamsocial workers, of the 815 usable returned sur-veys, 665 respondents with an MSW wereselected and herein examined.

The survey instrument included nineitems employing semantic differential scales.These items were used to obtain informationregarding respondents' opinions on how

SOCIAL WORK PORTRAYAL IN THE MEDIA 627

social workers are portrayed in both the enter-tainment and news media. Nine pairs ofadjectives were given and the respondentswere asked to rank them on a scale of 1 to 5according to their perception of the depictionof social workers in the entertainment media(For example from effective, to ineffectivewhere l=effective, and 5=ineffective). Next,this same pair of adjectives was given againbut this time the respondents were asked torank them in a similar manner according totheir perception of the depiction of socialworkers in the news media. The format of thesurvey question is available in the Appendix.

Resuits

Demographically, the study sample comparedwell with the national NASW membership asdescribed by Gibelman and Schervich (1997).These authors found that the median age ofNASW members was between 41 and 45years, including BSW members who tend tobe yoimger. In the present study, the mean ageof respondents was 47 years. Additionally,nearly 20% («=128) of the research partici-pants were male, while 80% (n=531) werefemale (six participants did not identify gen-der). Gibelman and Schervich found thatnationally, women comprise 78.30% of themembership. Eighty-five percent (n=562) ofstudy participants were Caucasian, which isconsistent with the national statistics thatreveal 88.50% of the membership is White.The mean income for study participants was$42,889 compared to 38% of the national MSWmembership who earned $30,000 to $39,999;and 31.50 % who earned $40,000 or more. Themean years of experience since first socialwork degree for the sample was 14 years.

Sociai Woriter Perceptions of MediaPortraits of Sociai Worit

Examining first the individual adjective scales,the average for each of the nine scales isreported in Table 1 for the news and entertain-ment media. Lower average scores reflect thatthe respondents perceived the media as pre-senting social work in a more positive light oras portraying social workers as more possess-ing the positive characteristics listed. Higherscores reflect respondent perceptions of themedia as showing social workers negativelyand as displaying the negative traits listed onthe right of the scales.

The first observation, supported by theitem average scores greater than 3.0, is that theparticipants were inclined to rate both thenews and entertainment media as showingmore negative than positive portrayals of theprofession. This was indicated by the preva-lence of mean scores exceeding 3.0 and reflectsa negative perception of the media's portraiton associated traits. Only two items had posi-tive average mean scores. Both the entertain-ment and news media were perceived by theMSW respondents as portraying social work-ers as slightly more normal and caring than asabnormal and imcaring.

Exemplifying this tendency toward perceiv-ing negativity in their profession's portrayal inthe entertairunent media is the distributionof responses to the "effective-ineffective" scaleitem. This dimension is perceived by these socialworkers as the characteristic shown the worstof all the individual items. The most frequentresponse was 4 with most (58.1%, n=360) ofthe participants indicating a more ineffectiveentertainment media portrait. Conversely less

628 JOURNAL OF SOCIAL WORK EDUCATION

than 2% («=11) credited the entertainment

media as absolutely portraying social workers

as effective. At the other perceptional end, the

characteristic that is seen as portrayed most

positively in the entertairunent media is car-

ing. The entertainment media is perceived by

respondents as showing social workers to be

more caring than uncaring. The modal re-

sponse was 2 (41.9%, n=264) with more than

half (57.8%, w=364) scoring entertainment's

image on this dimension as a 1 or 2. Just 3.2%

(n=20) scored the entertairunent media a 5 on

this item, believing the media to show social

workers as absolutely uncaring. In total, on

only two characteristics were respondents col-

lectively likely to perceive social workers as

positively portrayed in the media. The bulk of

the individual measures averages fell on the

negative half of the scales.

Overall perceptions of entertainment and

news portrayals of social work were further

explored via a news and entertairunent per-

ception scale constructed from the 9 differen-

tial items. The reliability of the resultant scale

was good (9-item scale, Cronbach's alpha=

.8984 for the entertainment items, .8963 for the

news items). The scales' alpha values reflect

the general agreement of the MSW respon-

dents regarding the news and entertainment

media's portrayals of social work across the

nine dimensions. The overall entertairunent

media perception scale reported at the bottom

of Table 1 balances near the neutral point (3.0),

slightly tilted toward the negative (a small

majority, 55.6%, n=352, of respondents scored

greater than 3.0 on the cumulative scale).

Further examination of the individual-item

broad standard deviation values (see Table 1)

TABLE 1. MSW Social Woriter Perceptions of Sociai Work Depiction in News andEntertainment Media

Scale Adjectives

Effective/ineffective

Normal/deviant

Fositive/negative

Intelligent / unintelligent

Strong/weak

Caring/uncaring

Interesting/boring

Trained / untrained

Frofessional/improfessional

Media Perception Scale

n

620

611

612

612

614

616

612

619

617

622

EntertainmentMedia

M

3.63

2.92

3.19

3.13

3.23

2.48

3.29

3.35

3.31

3.15

SD

1.01

.88

1.01

.93

.95

1.03

.95

1.03

1.02

.73

NewsMedia

M

3.57

2.86

3.26

3.19

3.31

2.80

3.31

3.44

3.38

3.22

SD

1.01

.82

.92

.87

.83

1.04

.81

.98

1.04

.74

t

1.18

1.56

-1.61

-1.57

-2.25

-8.20

-0.43

-2.18

-1.66

-2.52

P

.237

.120

.108

.117

.025*

.000**

.670

.029*

.097

.012*

Note. Faired adjectives were ranked on a scale of 1 to 5 with lower scores indicative offavorable perception. *p<.05, **p<.01.

a more

SOCIAL WORK PORTRAYAL IN THE MEDIA 629

revealed substantial variation in social work-

ers' perceptions of the overall entertainment

media's portrait. While a majority see the

entertainment media image as negative, it is

not a vast majority, and there exists a wide

range of perceptions among social workers of

their entertainment media portrait.

Turning to the perception of the news

media's portrait of social work, the individual

dimension receiving the most positive assess-

ment by respondents—as with the entertain-

ment media—was the characteristic caring-

uncaring. One third of the respondents scored

the news media a 2 on this item and 42.7%

(n=264) resided on the positive side of the

scale. Just 5.1% (n=32) saw the news media

portrait of social workers as totally vmcaring.

At the other end of the perceptional assess-

ment of the news media, MSW respondents

see the news portrait of effective versus inef-

fective the most negatively: 58.2% (n=361) of

respondents saw the news image as ineffec-

tive and nearly 1 out of 5 (18.3%) saw it as

totally ineffective, scoring the news media as a

5 on this item. Overall, the perceptional

assessment of the news media unavoidably

shifts toward the midpoint from this extreme

but remains on the negative assessment side

with a scale average of 3.22 (see Table 1). A

total of 58.7% (n=366) of the social workers

scored the news media greater than 3.0 on the

collective news media perception scale.

Demographic Differences

How social workers who see the media as more

positively presenting their profession differ

from those who see the media as presenting

less positive images was explored. An exami-

nation of the correlations between the demo-

graphic characteristics of age, length of work

experience as a social worker, and income,

revealed few distinguishing differences. There

was a significant, positive relationship between

age and caring/uncaring with regard to the

entertainment media (r=.O69, p<.05, n=626).

The older a social worker was, the more likely

they were to perceive the profession depicted

as uncaring. Regarding length of experience as

a social worker, only the perception of the

entertainment media's portrayal of social

workers as strong versus weak was related.

Respondents with more work experience were

slightly more likely to see the entertainment

media as showing their profession as weak

(r=.O98, p<.05, n=610). Finally, social workers

with higher-than-average incomes were more

likely to perceive the entertainment media as

showing the profession as more caring than

imcaring (r=-.O94, p<.05, n=511).

There were no differences along any of

the nine individual dimensions or the overall

media perception scale for ethrucity (meas-

ured as White or non-White). Differences

between male and female social workers

emerged as the demographic trait with the

greatest number of differences (See Table 2).

An independent samples t test revealed that

while both males and females perceived the

news media as showing social workers as

more negative than positive, females (M=3.33,

SD=.93, w=505) perceived the portrayal as sig-

nificantly more negative than males (M=3.04,

SD=.91, n=119), (f(180)=-3.08, p<.01). Males

(M=2.57, SD=1.04, n=120) were more likely

than females (M=2.86, SD=1.03, n=504) to

perceive that the profession is depicted as

more caring in the news media (f(622)=-2.74,

p<.01). Additionally, both males and females

630 JOURNAL OF SOCIAL WORK EDUCATION

perceived the news media's portrayal of theprofession as more untrained, howeverfemales (M=3.50, SD=.98, n=503) perceivedthe portrayal to be significantly more un-trained than males (M=3.23, SD=.98, w=120),(f(621)=2.71, p<.01). Finally, male social work-ers (M=2.30, SD=.93, «=123) were more likelyto credit the entertairunent media as present-ing a generally more caring portrait of the

social work profession (f(622)=-2.15, p<.05)than female social workers (M=2.52, SD=1.04,n=501). In essence, only in the areas of theportrayal of social workers as caring versusuncaring, trained and untrained, and general-ly positive and negative was there a substan-tial hint of demographic differences limited togender. Two conclusions suggest themselves.Males tended to be slightly less critical of the

Tahie 2. Comparison of Maie and Femaie MSW Sociai Worker Perceptions ofNews and Entertainment Media Portrayai of the Sociai Work Profession

Adjectives

Effective / ineffectiveNormal/deviantFositive/negative

Intelligent/unintelligentStrong/weakCaring/imcaring

Interesting / uninterestingTrained/imtrainedFrofessional / unprofessional

Effective/ineffectiveNormal/deviantFositive/negative

Intelligent/imintelligentStrong/weakCaring / uncaring

Interesting/uninterestingTrained/untrained

Frofessional/improfessional

M

Male

SD

News Media

3.47

2.83

3.04

3.07

3.22

2.57

3.27

3.23

3.23

.98

.83

.91

.86

.83

1.04

.87

.98

1.04

Female

M

3.61

2.87

3.33

3.24

3.34

2.86

3.31

3.50

3.43

Entertainment Media

3.56

2.88

3.08

3.08

3.28

2.30

3.18

3.36

3.34

1.00

.95

1.02

.99

.97

.93

.99

.98

1.05

3.64

2.93

3.23

3.1e

3.20

2.52

3.30

3.35

3.30

SD

1.01

.82

.93

.88

.83

1.03

.80

.98

1.02

1.01

.87

1.01

.91

.95

1.04

.93

1.04

1.01

626

619

180

620

617

622

617

621

620

623

615

616

619

622

622

618

623

621

t

-1.41

-.465

-3.08**

-1.92

-1.32

-2.74**

-.480

2.71**

-1.84

-.691

-.528

-1.42

-.676

.822

-2.15*

-1.31

.069

.377

Note. Faired adjectives were ranked on a scale of 1 to 5 with lower scores indicative of a morefavorable perception. *p<.05, **p<.01.

SOCIAL WORK PORTRAYAL IN THE MEDIA 6 3 1

media; and the portrait of social workers asuncaring appears to be a particularly sensi-tive issue. Overall, however, as indicated bythe lack of relationship with the news andentertainment media perception scales andthe relatively weak correlations that were sig-nificant, regardless of their differences inexperience, age, income, or gender, socialworkers were more similar than differentwith regard to their views of the portrayal ofthe profession in the media.

Entertainment and News MediaCemparison

The overall means of 3.15 (entertainment) and3.22 (news) reflects a tendency of the media tobe seen as projecting a more negative thanpositive image of social work. These meansalso establish an overall perception of the pro-fession as slightly but statistically significant-ly better in the entertainment media than inthe news media. Although not of great magni-tude, the overall respondent perception is thatthe news media show a poorer image of socialwork than the images projected by entertain-ment media. Additionally, three of the nineadjective dimensions, weak-strong, caring-uncaring, and trained-untrained, were seen assignificantly different between the entertain-ment and news.

Weak versus strong. When the social work-er's perceptions of the entertainment andnews media were compared, with regard tobeing depicted as strong or weak in the en-tertainment media and in the news media,there was a statistically significant differencebetween the means. Social workers perceivedthemselves as depicted as slightly stronger inthe entertainment media than in the news

media. The mean scores greater than 3.0,however, reflect that respondents see bothmedia genres as portraying social workersas more weak than strong. These social work-ers see themselves as portrayed badly in bothmedia realms, more so in the news mediarealm.

Caring versus uncaring. Regarding being

depicted as being caring or uncaring in theentertainment media versus the news media,there also was a statistically sigruficant differ-ence between the means. It is on this dimen-sion that the greatest difference regarding thetwo media realms is observed. While bothnews and entertainment media are thought toshow social workers as more caring than un-caring, it is in the entertainment media thatrespondents felt social workers were best por-trayed. The news media is seen as doing wellon this characteristic but not as well as theentertainment media.

Trained versus untrained. There was also a

slight but statistically significant differencebetween MSW perceptions of their depictionin the entertainment media and the newsmedia concerning being trained or untrained.Similar to the perception of strong versusweak, these social workers perceived them-selves depicted as a bit more trained inthe entertainment media than in the newsmedia. In sum, regarding differences in theperception of the news and entertainmentmedia, statistically significant differenceswere found in one third of the individualcharacteristics examined and in the overallmedia perception scales. Where the MSWrespondents did see differences, the enter-tainment media was perceived as presentinga more positive image.

632 JOURNAL OF SOCIAL WORK EDUCATION

Discussion

Overall, the results of this study demonstratethat a slight majority of social workers in thisstudy perceive themselves to be depicted neg-atively in both the news and entertainmentmedia, more negatively in the news mediathan in the entertainment media. Two rela-tionships were consistent for both the newsand entertainment media. The more income asocial worker earned, the more likely he or shewas to perceive their profession depicted asmore caring in both the entertairmient andnews media. Female social workers weremore likely than male social workers to per-ceive that the social work profession is depict-ed as uncaring in both the news and entertain-ment media. While these and other statistical-ly significant relationships were found in theanalysis, all of them were weak relationshipsand should be interpreted as such. Additional,more detailed research should be conductedto determine if these relationships have anyepistemological value. It is clear, however,that more often than not, social workers in thisstudy perceive that their profession is depict-ed negatively in the media with news mediadepictions being the most common source ofnegative portraits.

Limitations of this exploratory studyinclude the sample of social workers sur-veyed. All of the social workers sampled weremembers of the Florida Chapter of NASW.Their perceptions of the depiction of the socialwork profession may not reflect the percep-tions of Florida social workers who are notmembers of Florida NASW, or the perceptionsof social workers outside of the state ofFlorida. Future research should be conducted

with social workers from other regions of thecountry to determine if there are varying per-ceptions of media portrayals. These percep-tions are also based on views of 1999 mediaand whether social work views of contem-porary media are similar would requirereplication.

In contemporary society, the media havea crucial role in forming and shaping publicopinion. Media make available to peopleaspects of social reality, which they do notexperience directly and thereby make ele-ments of social life generally "knowable."This is particularly significant for an activitylike social work of which, unlike teaching ordoctoring, most people have little direct expe-rience (Franklin & Parton, 1991). Because theprofession of social work is somewhat diffi-cult to define and the public has little to nopersonal knowledge of the field of socialwork, the public creates its perceptions withthe help of images portrayed of it by outsidesources, such as news and entertainmentmedia. The social construction of social workreality is thus formed with the aid of theseundeniably influential sources. As the publicviews news and entertainment media con-cerning social work, the public forms theirperceptions of what social work entails andwho social workers are. The public sees notwhat may be the true reality of social work butthe reality presented by media sources, andthe media's reality may only serve to show theimage they wish to portray and not competingimages. The images from which the publicacquires knowledge of social work alter theperceptions of such work to either positiveor negative extremes. These extremes are theconstructions of reality that the public ac-

SOCIAL WORK PORTRAYAL IN THE MEDIA 633

quires. Images the media portray of socialwork serve to formulate the perception ofthose who have no direct contact with the pro-fession. There are few content analysis studiesof how the social work profession is actuallyshown in the media. The perception of mediacontent by MSW respondents in this study isthat it is more negative than positive. Whetheror not this is an accurate assessment of themedia is not known. The few content analysisstudies of the media image of social work thatare available are contradictory (Aidridge,1990; Davenport and Davenport, 1997; Frank-lin, 1998; Franklin & Parton, 1991). If, as socialworkers believe, the media images of socialworkers are depicted as more negative thanpositive, the public most likely would notbecome aware of it, as they are likely to havelittle real world contact with professionalsocial workers (Morris, 1988; Weir, 1981).Whether this speculated possibility is a realconcern must await additional research. Moreimportantly, however, the media also reachsocial workers, and exposure to negativeimages of their work can have adverse effectson professional recruitment, funding, self-image, morale, and work performance.

Conciusion

It is important for the future of the social workprofession for social workers to imprint amore positive image of itself on the public, asit is the public that holds the power of bene-faction for the profession. If individuals inneed of social work services have negativeimages of the social work profession, this per-ception may make it more difficult for socialworkers to engage and serve these clients.Social work, as a profession, seems to have

historically relied on a reactive strategy—allowing the media to create its media imageand then reacting to that image. What is rec-ommended is that the profession develop amore proactive media strategy and work toensure that profession-enhancing content isavailable. In the age of infotainment, the well-educated social worker has to be both clientand media aware. To not promote itself in themedia is to run the risk of becoming stereo-typed and irrelevant. It is of utmost impor-tance for the profession of social work toimprove its image in the news and entertain-ment media as these images are thought toaffect public support for programs, serviceutilization, worker morale, and its ability toattract and retain new professionals (Kauff-man & Raymond, 1996).

Since 1999 the number of both BSW andMSW students has been steadily declining(Joyner, 2005). The influence of the media por-trayal of the social work profession on enroll-ment is largely unknown. However, socialworker perception of the depiction of thesocial work profession in the popular mediashould be a cause for concern by social workeducators. For social work educators, knowl-edge of how practicing social workers per-ceive the media depiction of the professioncan be helpful in recruiting students and edu-cating them with regard to the media.

If social work educators are committed tohaving a positive impact on the way the pro-fession is depicted in the media, there aremany actions that could be taken to addressthe problem. "If the goal of social work educa-tion is to prepare effective practitioners,researchers, and policy makers, it could beargued that current instructional approaches

634 JOURNAL OF SOCIAL WORK EDUCATION

are neglecting to teach students crucial skillsneeded to promote a healthy and just society"(Tower, 2000, p. 585). Suggestions are to eitherdevelop a separate "Social Work and theMedia" course (see Tower, 2000) or to infusesocial work curricula with content on the useof various forms of media within core practiceand policy courses. Social work educatorsneed to help students understand the struc-tures, practices, and motivations behind vari-ous media if social workers hope to reshapeattitudes and increase public knowledge ofthe profession (Tower, 2000). It is critical forsocial workers to first understand the profes-sion of journalism and to develop an appreci-ation for deadline pressures and other newsmedia constraints. Social work educatorsneed to facilitate the development of essentialskills such as the ability to communicate clear-ly in interviews with journalists, ability todraft a press release, ability to identify when apress conference might be an effective promo-tional device, and the ability to achieve all ofthe aforementioned without using armoyingprofessional jargon (Neate & Philpot, as citedin Franklin, 1998). Educators also need toteach students how to use the media to pro-mote local programs and issues as well as theprofession itself. Students should be exposedin the classroom via role-playing courseassignments to a variety of situations andmediums. Exercises as simple as writing let-ters to the editor, mock interviews for localradio programs, creating public serviceannouncements, or generating footage forlocal television news stories, would all be ben-eficial activities to facilitate the developmentof media skills for social work students.

Further, as social work educators, we

need to seize each opportunity to educate notonly our students, but ourselves, our families,our communities, and the media about what itis that social workers actually do. We first needto work toward greater clarity among our-selves about exactly who we are, what we do,and why and how we do it (Freeman &Valentine, 2004). Developing a clearer pictureof ourselves will help us to begin to informothers about the education, ethics, duties,roles, and responsibilities that guide the prac-tice of professional social work. In our role associal work educators, we have prepared andcommitted ourselves to education—^who isbetter prepared to educate the public and themedia about the profession of social work?

We need to continually work to enhanceour public image and the NASW is in a primeposition to provide leadership in this area.NASW has launched a public education cam-paign in early 2005. NASW plans to conduct amulti-year national media campaign to pro-mote social work to the general public and torenew a sense of pride in the social work pro-fession ("Image Drive," 2004). The campaignwill include public service announcements, aconsumer Web site, direct marketing, specialevents, paid advertising, press conferences,op-ed articles, and other means of reachingthe public to make the profession of socialwork more accessible ("Perceptions ofProfession," 2004). This is an excellent start,but it is not enough. As social work educators,it is our responsibility to assume an active rolein the effort to clarify what it is that socialworkers do. Former NASW president GaryBailey said it best, "We've spent years helpingothers, but we don't help ourselves. Ourimage is portrayed by the media and it has not

SOCIAL WORK PORTRAYAL IN THE MEDIA 635

always been favorable. The time has come for

us to tell our own story, with one voice. To

tell the story of social work" ("Image Drive,"

2004, p. 10).

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Accepted: 03/06

Carole B. Zugazaga is assistant professor, Department of Socioiogy, Anthropology and Social WorKAuburn University. Raymond B. Surette is professor, Criminal Justice and Legal Studies, MonicaMendez is doctoral student. Department of Sociology, and Charles W. Otto is coordinator of sta-tistical research. University of Central Florida.

The research reported in this article was supported in part by the Florida Chapter of the NationalAssociation of Social Workers.

Address correspondence to Carole B. Zugazaga, Department of Sociology, Anthropology and SocialWorK Auburn University, 7030 Haley Center, Auburn, AL 36849; e-mail: zugazcb@auburn.edu.

APPENDIX. Format of Survey Question Used to Measure Social WorkerPerception of Media Portrayals of Social Work Professionals

"How do you feel social workers are depicted in the [entertainment/news] media?"

Effective

Normal

Positive

Intelligent

Strong

Caring

Interesting

Trained

Professional

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

2

2

2

2

2

2

2

2

2

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

4

4

4

4

4

4

4

4

4

5 Ineffective

5 Deviant

5 Negative

5 Unintelligent

5 Weak

5 Uncaring

5 Boring

5 Untrained

5 Unprofessional