Private interests and problem frames in social policy reform

Gabrielle Meagher, David P. Wilkins

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Research › peer-review

Abstract

This paper has two aims: to contribute to understanding of the role that private providers in social care markets play in social policy-making, and to present a method that enables systematic identification of themes in large bodies of policy-relevant digitized documents. We pursue these aims through corpus-assisted analysis of submissions by providers (non-profit, for-profit and professional) to an Australian inquiry into aged care policy in 2010-11. We show how quantitative methods from corpus linguistics can be used to identify themes, at the level of the word, phrase and construction, and outline how this form of analysis can support critical discourse analysis in the qualitative interpretive tradition. Our analysis reveals clear differences in how the three groups frame policy ‘problems’ and their ‘solutions’, and that these framings align broadly with their interests. We find evidence of a ‘market frame’ in the For-profit sub-corpus, an ‘advocacy frame’ in the Non-profit sub-corpus, and a ‘professionalism frame’ in the Professional sub-corpus. We also find some important commonalities between the provider groups, which raise questions for further research about internal diversity within these groups and about the interaction between regulation, system structure, and organizational interests.
LanguageEnglish
Article number1
Pages1-29
Number of pages29
JournalCritical approaches to discourse analysis across disciplines
Volume10
Issue number2
Publication statusPublished - 22 Sep 2018

Fingerprint

reform
profit
system structure
Group
market
quantitative method
discourse analysis
linguistics
regulation
interaction
evidence
Social Policy
professionalism

Keywords

  • problem framing
  • corpus-assisted discourse analysis
  • managed market
  • aged care
  • Australia

Cite this

Meagher, Gabrielle ; Wilkins, David P. / Private interests and problem frames in social policy reform. In: Critical approaches to discourse analysis across disciplines. 2018 ; Vol. 10, No. 2. pp. 1-29.
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Meagher, G & Wilkins, DP 2018, 'Private interests and problem frames in social policy reform', Critical approaches to discourse analysis across disciplines, vol. 10, no. 2, 1, pp. 1-29.

Private interests and problem frames in social policy reform. / Meagher, Gabrielle; Wilkins, David P.

In: Critical approaches to discourse analysis across disciplines, Vol. 10, No. 2, 1, 22.09.2018, p. 1-29.

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Research › peer-review

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Meagher G, Wilkins DP. Private interests and problem frames in social policy reform. Critical approaches to discourse analysis across disciplines. 2018 Sep 22;10(2):1-29. 1.

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