The purpose of this assignment is to encourage students to read and listen to current news items with an eye and an ear for the ideologies and values that are either overtly or covertly displayed in the coverage of the item. Students will select a current news item that discusses a social welfare policy concern. Some examples are (this list is not exhaustive and you do not have to choose a topic from this list):
· Defunding Planned Parenthood
· Voter Rights (following the passage of Voter ID laws)
· Drug Testing for TANF and/or SNAP Benefits
· Police Violence
· Substance Use or Abuse
· Rights for Transgender Persons (e.g. North Carolina’s HB2)
Black Lives Matter
Fracking
Mental health system
VA and veterans’ issues
Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare)
Immigration (undocumented immigrants)
COVID-19 (testing, vaccines, stimulus)
Please note that you are not picking the same topic as the topic of your History, Policies, and Advocacy paper!
Students must find at least two news sources (two different authors) that discuss the social welfare policy concern/issue and submit a paper that provides the following:
A brief summary of the news item
You are NOT summarizing each news article, rather you are summarizing the news item by incorporating the information that you learned from each news article
A discussion of the social justice implications of the issue (in other words, what are the social justice concerns? Think about why this topic is a social work concern.)
A discussion of the economic justice implications of the issue. If there are no economic justice concerns regarding this issue, you must state that and explain why.
A discussion that compares and contrasts the coverage of the news item between the news sources
How is the social welfare policy concern/issue discussed differently or similarly between the news sources?
This similarity or difference could be based on tone, language used, fact based vs. human interest, focus of the story, etc.
What ideologies and values (e.g. Judeo-Christian charity, Democratic egalitarianism and individualism, patriarchy, Protestant work ethic and capitalism, Social Darwinism, marriage and the nuclear family, white privilege, worthy vs. unworthy poor) are present in the coverage? Explain how the value or values are present (provide an example) in each of your sources.
Make sure you are addressing the coverage of the news item, not the news item itself!
How might the coverage of the issue, based on the news sources you read or heard, impact a social worker in practice? If you are not a social work major (intent), how might the coverage of the issue impact your intended profession’s practice (make sure you explicitly state what the profession is)?
In other words, if all you knew about the topic is what you read in these two articles, how would impact how you think about the issue or how you would interact with people? What assumptions would you make based on what you just read? What do you know, and what do you not know?
Some possible sources of “news”: The New York Times; MLive; Washington Post; Washington Times; Broadcast news (CBS, ABC, NBC, PBS, NPR); and Cable “news” shows (CNN, MSNBC, FOX). This list is not exhaustive and students may access sources that are outside of these “mainstream” media outlets. However, students must ensure that the author is not the same in the news sources. For example, multiple media outlets often publish stories originally written by the Associated Press. Each news item must come from a different news source and a different author. Furthermore, the news sources must be news articles as opposed to blogs, opinion pieces, or editorials.
The paper is due 3/14 and will be uploaded in Canvas (under unit 8). Papers must be double-spaced and in APA 7th edition style[1]. This paper does not require an abstract. All papers will be submitted in Canvas (under unit 8) and must be saved as a Word document (.doc or .docx) or submitted as a Google doc.
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