The use of media by administrators in child welfare: Organizational and environmental factors
Abstract
The study explains that the aligned influence of informant behavior, agency support, and task domain activity increased policy related media activity among 150 child welfare administrators, 97 of whom were social workers. Multivariate analysis was used to measure differences in media use among agency supported and unsupported "informants" and "boundary spanners". Allegory and path analysis were used as thinking tools to examine the relationship among the administrators, their agencies and the information to which they have access, amidst a turbulent environment. The study found that media use among administators is very infrequent, even among social workers. It further suggested that fear of client, administrative, and agency exposure contributes to media avoidance in general, and policy related media avoidance in particular. Further joint research by social work and media professionals can determine how client and agency information can be viewed as a resource, aggregated and presented to policy makers via the media.
Subject Area
Social work|Welfare
Recommended Citation
McGlade, Kathleen, "The use of media by administrators in child welfare: Organizational and environmental factors" (1995). ETD Collection for Fordham University. AAI9532083.
https://research.library.fordham.edu/dissertations/AAI9532083
