What if an Investigative Journalist Calls? Media Relations in Social Work.

This article aims to investigate to what extent social service organisations (SSOs) conceive news management as a means to promote organisational self-interest as opposed to achieving democratic openness. The study is based on a nationally representative telephone survey with persons responsible for communication or public relations in Swedish SSOs (n =91). Against the background of descriptive statistics, the aim is pursued by qualitative analysis of four open-ended questions. The literature on the relations between social work and media has largely painted a negative picture. This study suggests a different image. The statistical analysis of survey data revealed that respondents were largely satisfied with their relations to journalists. It is concluded that increasingly professionalised news management in SSOs has largely served the function of protecting organisational self-interest, at the expense of democratic openness. This is expressed in how respondents talked in terms of promoting the positive aspects of organisational performance, how they applied a marketing perspective and how the goal of addressing criticism was to deflect it rather than embrace the potential it had for improving performance. This approach is problematic and scholars and practitioners alike need to be more detached from the interests of the social work profession and its organisations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]