Suchergebnisse

This paper reflects on the role of social services departments and social workers in the system of direct payments. By means of the Community Care (Direct Payments) Act, 1996, care services can be commissioned directly by the user. Social services departments have a role in setting up the local direct payments system and individual social workers may promote and facilitate its use by disabled people. There are indications from regional evaluations, however, that for a variety of reasons, organizations and their individual employees are sceptical and reluctant to implement this legislation. Given this, together with the government's commitment to the system as a means of promoting the full citizenship of disabled people, the authors question whether social workers and social services departments have any future in this area of social care.

The Times Index is a well-established and important paper resource for researchers that is perhaps not fully recognized. Using a study on 'Homicide and the Media' as an exemplar, this article considers the strengths and weaknesses of the Index.The Index will usually provide better focus into the researcher's area of study than CD-ROM searches, and can identify stories which CD-ROM searches miss. A modest quality control study indicates its accuracy, but it is stressed that a quality control test is study-specific.

Abstract: This study describes the reporting trajectories of the 13 cases that received the most coverage in a leading British newspaper, The Times, over a period of 23 years (1977 to 1999 inclusive). We have classified these as 'mega‐cases'. This approach moves beyond merely measuring the coverage of cases to charting how cases can escalate to become 'moral panics', move into a shared 'general knowledge' of killing or, in some cases, come to occupy iconic status. Some 'mega' cases fade from consciousness when viewed over a period of time. In 'mega‐cases' there is an unexpected 'primary incident' that makes the case newsworthy in the first instance. Then the 'formal process' helps to manage a homicide within accepted and acceptable boundaries. In broad terms, the media trajectories of these 'mega‐cases' following the 'primary incident' are predictable. However, further unexpected 'incidents' unrelated to 'process'– suicides, attacks by other prisoners, escapes – challenge the predictability of these 'mega‐cases'. The trajectories of homicide cases that begin to link in with wider societal agendas are the most difficult to predict.

Recent work on homicide and the media has focused on the United States. This study considers the British context and examines the coverage of homicide by a leading British newspaper (The Times) over a period of 23 years (1977 to 1999 inclusive). The focus is on the newspaper coverage of the top cases each year and over the whole period. This approach allows for an exploration of the hierarchy within 'media–homicides' that are distinguished in terms of 'mega–cases', 'mezzo–cases' and 'routine cases'. Hence, this issue is shown to be a more complex social and cultural phenomenon than is usually understood through the traditional binary 'reported–non reported' approach. The importance of unusualness and cultural context is emphasised in fully understanding how homicides become, particularly, mega–cases.