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This article focuses on how the Swedish news media depicts the functioning of the social services and the situation of social workers. The empirical material consists of 586 articles published online during the years 2010–2015. A discursive approach makes up the theoretical and methodological framework. The aims of the article are to identify and categorise media narratives about social services and social workers, how they are portrayed, what is conveyed and how the stakeholders' (politicians, managers and social workers) negotiate the question of responsibility for the situation in the social services. The study identifies and categorises seven different types of media narrative. In these narratives, social workers are portrayed in various ways, such as unwilling to stay in the profession, concerned, hardworking, etc. Reports on the crisis in the social services tend to dominate, e.g. how the social services fail to follow-up cases of child abuse, social workers' heavy workload and that legal security cannot be guaranteed. Stakeholders, faced with reported criticism, maintain credibility by taking some responsibility and/or displacing liability by using various rhetorical resources. The media produces a public image of the lack of responsibility for solving the problematic situation. In this respect, the take-action-narratives are central to the debate, which argues for joint action to be taken to find solutions. Although the media is a powerful and scrutinising tool, it also needs to report on the improvements that have been made in order to give a more balanced picture of the social services.

The aim of the article is to problematise and discuss the usefulness of thechronological Ias a new analytical approach for studying the doing of identity in storytelling. The chronological I can be both a rhetorical resource for narrators and a new analytical tool for studying the process of doing identity. The article suggests that the chronological I adds a new analytical dimension to different types of narrative analysis. The article takes its point of departure in the understanding of the narrator as using time as a rhetorical resource for telling or doing identity in ongoing interactions. In this discursive narrative approach, narratives are viewed as socially situated actions in a context in which the narrator has to relate to culturally accepted agreements about responsibility and agency. The data for this article is based on interviews with twelve individuals exposed to workplace bullying. As this topic is sensitive, there is a need for narrators to manage their accountability when asked to account for their agency or non agency in the reported events.

Investigates the impact of administrative reforms shifting control of welfare services from the state to municipal governments in Finland & the economic depression of the early 1990s on attitudes toward welfare among citizens & local government elites, 1992-1996. In-home interviews with citizens ages 15+ (N = approximately 1,000 each sample year) & anonymous mail questionnaire data from administrative & political elites in each municipality are drawn on to examine changes in attitudes in terms of opinions regarding lower standards of welfare service delivery & cuts in welfare spending; sociodemographic factors influencing such attitudes are analyzed. The attitudes of the two groups are compared & found to have remained divergent across the period studied regarding general cuts in welfare spending, though the attitudes of the two elite groups are quite similar; attitudes toward some specific welfare cuts are more similar. Comparisons are made to the other Nordic countries in general, & implications for future welfare spending are evaluated. 6 Tables, 8 Figures, 1 Appendix, 69 References. K. Hyatt Stewart

The COVID-19 pandemic has dominated the global media since 2020. To a large extent, it is via the news media that the public has learned about the risks, levels of danger, governmental regulations and mandatory actions. This article highlights the subject positions constructed by the Swedish news media from January 2020 to February 2021 in reports about the pandemic. The result shows that citizens can be active-passive or solitary solidarity, these positions appeal to individual accountability, thus potentially shaping and fostering citizens in line with the Swedish government's wider response to the pandemic. The news media's images are of self-regulated citizens who govern and discipline themselves and others according to the current discourses, all of which simultaneously evoke fear, togetherness and hope. The ideological dilemmas for citizens are whether to be active-passive or, if necessary, switch to the solitary solidarity subject position.

Discussions on the pros and cons of a basic income (BI) have remained mainly at the 'systemic level'. Based on survey and interview data, this study provides a 'bottom‐up' perspective on the legitimacy of the idea of a basic income among people queuing in breadlines in Helsinki in late 2016, who are assumed to be affected positively by this benefit. While general support for the idea is high, not everyone supports an unconditional BI. Despite the likely 'objective interest', a BI does not seem to be supported by food aid recipients any more than by the general population as measured by a previous study. Besides interests, normative beliefs and perceptions of deservingness seem of importance for legitimacy too, especially among those not supporting a BI. Doubts regarding a BI are to some extent connected to wishes to limit the social citizenship of some of the persons in the breadlines.

Frontline workers often use discretion when implementing rules. Thus, their own views can be expected to influence client treatment and decisions. We investigate how different groups of frontline workers, with different degrees and types of professional training and within different institutional settings, perceive social assistance and social assistance recipients, focusing on workers' (N=2124) views on overuse, laziness, shame and underuse. The results from the Finnish case investigated, where social assistance has recently been transferred from the municipal social services to a national social security institution, highlight the complex interplay between policy goals, institutional logics and the group of frontline workers.

Different methods have yielded different results regarding the media's political agenda-setting power: Time-series studies comparing agendas in the media and politics have pointed to a minimal and surveys of politicians to massive media influence. Inspired by these findings and the suggested explanations for them, this article studies in detail politicians' views on the media's political agenda-setting power: How do politicians assess media's power over different types of agendas, do they distinguish between different forms of media power, and does their individual political power position or trust in the media affect how they perceive the media's power? A survey of Finnish members of parliament (MPs) shows that politicians perceive the media's power to be massive regarding symbolic but minimal or moderate regarding substantial political agendas. However, many politicians do not clearly distinguish between the media's political agenda-setting power and its political framing power. Neither experiences of being a minister nor the tendency to use the media as a scapegoat affect politicians' views on media power in politics. The findings improve empirical knowledge on the media's power in politics, strengthen the foundations for interpreting existing survey results, and provide a basis for further improving future surveys on media power.

Kallio J, Blomberg H, Kroll C. Social workers' attitudes towards the unemployed in the Nordic countriesIn recent decades, municipal social workers have become the implementers of new types of social policy measures aimed at activating the unemployed. These policies put a greater emphasis on the individual's own responsibility for being unemployed. Little is known, however, about how social workers view the unemployed – one factor that might influence how policies are in fact implemented. Therefore, our purpose was to analyse Nordic social workers' attitudes towards the unemployed and their determinants: Do social workers' attitudes correspond with a more individualistic view on unemployment? We utilised the data from surveys of professional social workers in four Nordic countries. Our analyses showed that individualistic attitudes towards the unemployed appeared to be rather rare among Nordic social workers. However, attitudinal differences were found between and within countries.

The study analysed views on poverty among Finnish frontline workers in three welfare sector institutions. Two different institutional logics, universal and selective, and two sectors, the public and the voluntary, were represented. A nationwide survey among social security officials, municipal social workers and diaconal workers was utilised (N = 2,124). The methods applied included factor analysis, the examination of means and multivariate analysis of variance. Frontline workers were found to support structural reasons for poverty regardless of institutional affiliation. Analyses, however, also revealed significant differences between the institutions, but not of the kind expected. Social security officials, working in a universal institution, were less likely to endorse structural factors and more likely to endorse individualistic poverty explanations than were social and diaconal workers. Type of education and personal political ideology, respectively, were also found to be of significant importance for poverty perceptions, independent of institutional logic.

Street-level bureaucrats have been given an increasing role in the implementation of policies aimed at the poor. The article analyses: (1) how social workers in the Nordic countries explain the causes of poverty and whether there are variations between countries in social workers' perceptions; and (2) the nature of the impact, if any, of various individual- and municipal-level factors on social workers' perceptions of the causes of poverty. Survey data gathered from social workers in four countries are analysed and combined with data from the municipalities in which the respondents work. The results illustrate that social workers display a surprisingly large variation in perceptions: there are differences between countries and also differences related to individual-level factors, while municipality-level factors do not appear to influence the perceptions of social workers in an obvious way.