Bilder av socialtjänsten – hur socialtjänstens arbete med barn och unga framställs i dagspress

Sammanfattning

This study focuses on how the daily press portrays social workers and their work with children and teenagers. It is a discourse analysis with social constructivism as the theoretical framework. The method was a qualitative cross-section together with Fairclough's model of critical discourse analysis. The material consists of news articles from three of the largest newspapers in Sweden from the year 2020 to 2025. Three discourses were found: juvenile delinquency, disinformation, and working conditions for social workers. It became clear that there is a connection between the daily press and the social services. Mass media could either present a negative description of social work or a more positive one. A negative portrayal affects social workers and their work. Together with an organization that has its limitations and work-related pressure, the social workers tend not to work proactively because ofa lack of time and resources. These conditions constitute one of the three discourses in this study. For the discourse of disinformation, it became evident that the daily press had an impact on people’s lives as well as on society. The discourse of youth delinquency is reported as a major problem in society, and the news articles focus, among other things, on the age and severity of the children and teenagers who commit crimes.