Media and Substance Use
This collection of articles published in Drugs: Education, Prevention and Policy in the last decade showcases news media analyses from Australia, Belgium, England, Romania, Scotland and the USA. Using both quantitative and qualitative approaches, these articles provide compelling insights into the broader social and structural issues that shape the framing of substance use, and the people who use them, and how these shift over time with changing agendas and moral concerns. They show how substance use is presented either as a public health problem with significant cost to society, or through class politics that construct it as a problem of the 'vulnerable' or 'underclass' addict; or the 'deviant' or 'unruly' youth. The framing of policy debates, the sources represented, and the competing discourses of public health versus autonomy and free markets, are powerfully used to influence public opinion and policy outcomes.
Edited by
Amy Pennay(Centre for Alcohol Policy Research, La Trobe University)