Social Policy, the Media and Misrepresentation examines aspects of news media reporting of social policy and how such coverage can influence processes of policy-making and implementation. It offers an appraisal of the complex inter-relationships between news media, news sources, the content of media coverage of social policy and its impact on audiences, public opinion and policy makers. Through detailed case studies, the various contributors explore: *social work and child protection *housing and homelessness *the charity and voluntary sectors *poverty and welfare policy *health (including HIV/AIDS) and mental health *education and crime and juvenile justice.

The Court’s decisions are interpreted and disseminated via the media. During this process, the media paints an image of the Court and its business. Like any artist, the media has license regarding what to cover and the amount of attention devoted to any aspect of the Court and its business. Some cases receive tremendous attention, while others languish on the back pages or are ignored. These selection effects create a skewed picture of the Court and its work, and might affect public attitudes toward the Court. Indeed, studies of media coverage of other governmental institutions reveal that when, and how, their policy decisions are covered has implications for the public’s understanding of, compliance with, support for, and cynicism about the policy. This book uncovers and describes this coverage and compares it to the confirmation hearings, the Court’s actual work, even its members. Rorie Spill Solberg and Eric N. Waltenburg analyze media coverage of nominations and confirmation hearings, the justices’ "extra-curricular" activities and their retirements/deaths, and the Court’s opinions, and compare this coverage to analyses of confirmation transcripts and the Court’s full docket. Solberg and Waltenburg contend that media now cover the Court and its personnel more similarly to its coverage of other political institutions. Journalists still regurgitate a mythology supported by the justices, a "cult of the robe," wherein unbiased and apolitical judges mechanically base their decisions upon the law and the Constitution. Furthermore, they argue the media also focus on the "cult of personality," wherein the media emphasize certain attributes of the justices and their work to match the public’s preferences for subject matter and content. The media’s portrayal, then, may undercut the Court’s legitimacy and its reservoir of good will.

An understanding of social policy is crucial for social workers as it underpins and shapes the legislative framework that they work within. From safeguarding service users and enabling them to improve their lives, to protecting the most vulnerable in society, social policy also has a vital role to play within social work education. It is important therefore for students to engage critically with social policy. This book introduces policy and shows how it has changed and evolved over time, how it reflects changes in society and how it is applied to everyday practice.

An understanding of social policy is crucial for social workers as it underpins and shapes the legislative framework that they work within. From safeguarding service users and enabling them to improve their lives, to protecting the most vulnerable in society, social policy also has a vital role to play within social work education. It is important therefore for students to engage critically with social policy. This book introduces policy and shows how it has changed and evolved over time, how it reflects changes in society, and how it is applied to everyday practice.

By stressing the importance of subjectivity and interpretation, social constructionism offers a different conception of reality from the traditional approach to housing policy analysis. This book provides an up-to-date review of the social constructionist perspective and considers its philosophical basis. It discusses how social problems are constructed and, in turn, how this informs policy-making. It is divided into two parts. The first section is theoretical and discusses the variety of conceptual approaches utilised within the constructionist paradigm. The second part provides a number of empirically based case studies from the UK and Australia to illustrate the different methodologies that form the social constructionist corpus. The book also evaluates both the criticisms that have been made against the social constructionist perspective and the strengths and weaknesses of constructionist methods. It therefore contributes to the development of a future research agenda for social constructionist research in housing and urban policy.

In this sequel to the acclaimed Welfare Theory (Palgrave, 2001), Tony Fitzpatrick examines the most recent, influential and cutting edge ideas influencing policy studies today. Clearly structured to enable students to make theoretical connections between apparently diverse areas, it provides an invaluable synthesis of the most important theoretical innovations in the discipline in recent years. Comprehensive, engaging and authoritative, New Theories of Welfare will appeal to all those interested in social and public policy, politics, sociology and philosophy.

In recent years the pace of reform in health policy and the NHS has been relentless. But how are policies formed and implemented? This fully updated edition of a bestselling book explores the processes and institutions that make health policy, examining what constitutes health policy, where power lies, and what changes could be made to improve the quality of health policy making. Drawing on original research by the author over many years, and a wide range of secondary sources, the book examines the role of various institutions in the formation and implementation of health policy. Unlike most standard texts, it considers the impact of devolution in the UK and the role of European and international institutions and fills a need for an up-to-date overview of this fast-moving area. It features new case studies to illustrate how policy has evolved and developed in recent years. This new edition has been fully updated to reflect policies under the later years of New Labour and the Coalition government. Although written particularly with the needs of students and tutors in mind, this accessible textbook will also appeal to policy makers and practitioners in the health policy field.

Cultural criminology has now emerged as a distinct theoretical perspective, and as a notable intellectual alternative to certain aspects of contemporary criminology. Cultural criminology attempts to theorize the interplay of cultural processes, media practices, and crime; the emotional and embodied dimensions of crime and victimization; the particular characteristics of crime within late modern/late capitalist culture; and the role of criminology itself in constructing the reality of crime. In this sense cultural criminology not only offers innovative theoretical models for making sense of crime, criminality, and crime control, but presents as well a critical theory of criminology as a field of study. This collection is designed to highlight each of these dimensions of cultural criminology - its theoretical foundations, its current theoretical trajectories, and its broader theoretical critiques-by presenting the best of cultural criminological work from the United States, Europe, Australia, and elsewhere.

In the World Library of Educationalists, international experts compile career long collections of what they judge to be their finest pieces of work – extracts from books, key articles, salient research findings, major theoretical and practical contributions – so the world can read them in a single manageable volume. Readers will be able to follow the themes and strands and see how their work contributes to the development of the field. Bob Lingard has spent the last 30 years researching and writing in universities in Australia, England and Scotland about changing education policy issues. His work is written from a sociological perspective and with a commitment to social justice. He is the co-editor and co-author of 17 books and more than 100 journal articles and book chapters. In Politics, Policies and Pedagogies in Education, Bob Lingard provides critical sociological engagement with the politics of education. The focus is education policy and the impact of globalization, including epistemological and methodological issues necessary for researching education policy today. Topics analyzed include: educational restructuring new accountabilities and testing mediatization of education policy policy as numbers the global policy field and policy borrowing pedagogies. Lingard also considers the nature of educational research today. He has selected 12 of his key writings and in a critical introduction situates and contextualizes the work against key developments in the field and in the changing world.

Learn how political marketing and public relations affect the electoral process! Communication of Politics: Cross-Cultural Theory Building in the Practice of Public Relations and Political Marketing examines how communication and marketing experts influence politics. The book reviews the state of the art in political communication management and marketing through a cross-cultural integration of research and theoretical approaches. An international panel of authors presents a comparative assessment of the impact of candidate and party appeals on the electorate, examines case studies from elections in the United States and Europe, and offers innovative models of voter behavior in the United States, Poland, and Slovenia. Communication of Politics provides valuable insights into the merger of political marketing and public relations. The book examines the cause and effect of the increasing role of communications professionals in the political process and documents the relationship between politicians and communications professionals working in electoral committees, political parties, governments, government agencies, consultancies, and polling agencies. Topics addressed by the international panel of scholars and practitioners include: a critical assessment of strategies used in the 2000 United States Presidential election branding as a means of establishing party values and winning support the expanding roles of polls, focus groups and Internet-based research on elections the relationship between foreign affairs/diplomacy and media/public relations Quangos (Quasi-Autonomous Non-Governmental Organizations) and much more! Communication of Politics: Cross-Cultural Theory Building in the Practice of Public Relations and Political Marketing examines the innovative—and sometimes controversial—uses of contemporary electoral marketing. The book is an essential resource for academics, journalists, and political practitioners, including campaign managers, charity fundraisers, public service managers, party-policy-makers—even candidates.