Volume VII, Number 1, Winter 2001

Issue Topic: Strategic Communications

Spotlight

Challenging the Norm in Welfare Reform Reporting

Danielle Hollar and Julia Coffman of HFRP reveals the results of HFRP's review of the ethnic media's coverage of welfare reform and how it suggests the messages can be framed for a greater effect.

Congress passed legislation in 1996 that substantially changed the face of welfare substantially by making benefits contingent on meeting work or work preparation requirements. After almost five years, the reauthorization deadline for this legislation looms close on the horizon (October 1, 2002).

There is little doubt that the media will play a role in informing the reauthorization debate. Welfare reform researchers who want to disseminate their results and advocates who want to build public will for their positions can be more effective in informing the debate if their media strategies are grounded in research on how welfare issues have been presented to date.

The Dominant Frame
We know from social science research that the manner in which a problem is “framed” can profoundly influence how it is viewed. As William Gamson notes, “Policy controversies [like those inherent in welfare reform and its reauthorization] inevitably involve battles over meaning. Think of them as framing contests. On most issues there is typically a conventional, dominant frame that most people use … Controversy is created when challengers offer an alternative way of framing the issue.”1

The dominant frame in the mainstream media on poverty and welfare reform appears to be one of personal responsibility. This frame “fits” with the intent of 1996 welfare reform legislation that emphasized work in return for receiving benefits.

In addition to the focus on personal responsibility, coverage on welfare is often episodic; it tells stories about individual welfare recipients (and often not success stories) and neglects to place stories in a broader context that connects them to causes or solutions.

Media campaigns with a stake in perpetuating this dominant frame during the reauthorization debate are at an advantage. Those who want to challenge this frame have a more difficult task. However, lessons from ethnic media research may provide some useful tips for tackling that task.

Adding Value through Ethnic Media Research
In 2000, the Harvard Family Research Project embarked on a media research project to shed more light on how the media was treating the topic of welfare reform.2 This research took a unique vantage by looking at how the ethnic media covered this topic.

HFRP analyzed the content of articles published between October, 1999, and March, 2000, from a total of nine African-American, Native-American and Spanish language newspapers. Researchers read each newspaper thoroughly, clipped or downloaded articles and summarized the content based on research protocol.

When the ethnic media research juxtaposed against the presentation of research in the mainstream media, it provides a useful contrast for how messages about welfare reform can be framed for a different or possibly greater effect.

An Alternative Frame
As the quote below illustrates, while personal responsibility is still discussed in ethnic media coverage of welfare reform, HFRP found that governmental responsibility in helping people transition off of welfare and out of poverty became part of the frame.

This frame is strategic because it opens the issue up and challenges people to look at welfare reform in a slightly different and expanded way, building on the notion of personal responsibility and suggesting that welfare recipients want to work and be responsible but realistically need help in transitioning off welfare.

Enhancing the Alternative Frame
All good frames should define the issue, explain who is responsible and suggest potential solutions. HFRP's ethnic media research suggests that there are ways to enhance the alternative frame for greater impact.

First, the issue can be defined by connecting it with results about what has happened to families and children. While welfare reform has sparked a colossal amount of research, much of the story on results to date has been reported in terms of simple caseload declines.3

Second, the frame needs to connect with a discussion of solutions. Policy analysts note that some of the primary reauthorization questions will be targeted at what government supports are needed for families who have left welfare and for those who remain.4 The challenge for those who want to effectively inform the debate will be not only to frame this issue by indicating that current and former welfare recipients need supports and that government can play an important role in providing those supports, but also to connect this discussion with clear and specific policy implications.

1 Gamson, W. (2000). Framing social policy. The New England Nonprofit Quarterly, 7(2). www.nonprofitquarterly.org/section/156.html
2 This was part of a larger research project connected to the W.K. Kellogg Foundation's Devolution Initiative to examine how the media covered welfare reform and health care—two policy areas that devolved considerably from the federal level to the state level in the 1990s.
3 We Interrupt This Message. (1999). Silencing poverty: A study on news coverage of welfare. San Francisco, CA. Hollar, D. (2001). A holistic theoretical model for examining welfare reform: Quality of life. Forthcoming in Public Administration Review.
4 Haskins, R., Sawhill, I., & Weaver, K. (2001). Wefare reform: Reauthorization: An overview of problems and issues. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution.

Danielle Hollar, Consultant, HFRP
Julia Coffman, Consultant, HFRP