“Social Workers Should Be Required to Watch this Episode” : Social Media Perceptions of Television Portrayals of Fictional CPS Workers

Abstract

Child Protective Services (CPS) workers appear in television plotlines across every fiction genre, and these depictions are often quite unfavourable. Customer engagement behaviours (CEBs), or what viewers say in online forums or on social media influence how other viewers perceive CPS workers. This interconnectivity is examined here through the framework of CEBs and Social TV using case studies from four popular programs: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (BtVS), Shameless, Law and Order: SVU (SVU), and The Sandman. These case studies were compared for accuracy against observations given by a former Child Protective Investigator, whose feedback indicated that the realistic programs (SVU and Shameless), while being overly dramatised, had more authentic and balanced CPS portrayals than the fantasy programs (BtVS and The Sandman). Common themes from the audience in the CEBs are: CPS workers are overworked, underpaid, and too bureaucratic; greed motivates some families to foster or adopt children; and that the system of protective services is broken.