Media Rhetoric, Welfare Provision and Service User Narratives
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Media Rhetoric, Welfare Provision and Service User Narratives
IRAS ID
244218
Contact name
Becky Scott
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
The University of Huddersfield
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 3 months, 8 days
Research summary
The study will involve 2-3 focus groups of between 5 and 8 participants, who will discuss topics around benefit provision for mental health service users in a group format. Participants will be recruited via a flyer calling for expressions of interest; circulated by Touchstone - an advocacy service, which is based across the Kirklees area. Specifically, the ‘Meeting of Minds’ group is a walk-in group for service users, who meet regularly as a group to discuss the experience of and associated topics around mental health difficulties. This group is partly funded by the South West Yorkshire NHS Partnership Foundation Trust. Participants will also be asked to discuss a selection of newspaper articles on the topic of benefit provision and welfare for people with mental health difficulties. The aims of the study are to explore how mental health service users collectively negotiate and construct accounts of accessing the benefits system, and to explore how service users position themselves in regard to media rhetoric around benefit claiming and resist potentially problematic assumptions in order to renegotiate their identities. The value of the research is the potential to understand the media impact on mental health service users and how this is resisted.
REC name
Wales REC 6
REC reference
18/WA/0300
Date of REC Opinion
3 Sep 2018
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion