Crystallising the official narrative: News discourses about the killings from the Philippine government’s campaign against illegal drugs

Abstract

News media’s construction of crime and drugs can shape and change public perceptions and influence popular acceptance of policy and state responses. In this way, media, through selection of sources and framing of narratives, act as important agents of social control, either independently or indirectly by state actors. This article examines how the Philippine government’s anti-drug campaign, and the thousands of deaths resulting from them, has been depicted by the media to the public. We conducted a discourse analysis of television news stories to extract dominant frames and narratives, finding a pattern of over-privileging of State authority as a source, resulting in a monolithic message of justifying the killing of suspects. Furthermore, the ‘event-focused’ slant, which dominates the character of reports by media, inevitably solidifies the narrative that the deaths are a necessary consequence of a national public safety campaign. By relying almost exclusively on this narrative, to the exclusion of alternative frames, the media amplifies and crystallises the state’s narrative. As we critically examine how drugs, drug use and the zero-tolerance policy are positioned through discourse in news texts, the article raises important implications to the ethics and role of journalism in politics and provides explanations relating to crime-reporting norms, values and media organisation realities in the country.

Negotiated harms in moralized policies: The case of Duterte’s war on drugs

“…Discourses from both the administration and its critics have been widely covered by mainstream media. However, news reports on incidents of drug-related killings have contributed to strengthening state discourses by privileging state sources and using "neutral" event-driven reporting that give the government the power to control the narrative (Soriano, David, & Atun, 2021). Among the most prominent discourses in these news reports is that of nanlaban 1 , which portrays killings as police self-defense because of "suspects" fighting back (Lamchek, 2017).…”

“…News reports also heavily covered killings by masked vigilantes, labeling those killed by vigilantes as victims and others killed in police encounters as suspects. In drawing primarily from police sources, these reports increase the accessibility of state discourses that drive fear of illegal drug use and crime and dehumanize drug users victimized by tokhang (Soriano et al, 2021). Beyond mainstream media, social media has also become fertile ground for amplifying, modifying, and negotiating these varied institutional discourses.…”

“…This reflects the nanlaban defense created and communicated by the administration and amplified by the media. With self-defense being less controversial than killing in cold blood, this creates a gray area for legitimizing the use of deadly force (Lamchek, 2017;Soriano et al, 2021). This also portrays the police as being more vulnerable and less agentic, deeming them less culpable and tokhang less immoral (Schein & Gray, 2016.…”

The green shift? Narratives of changing cannabis policies and identity-work among Norwegian adolescents

“…The discourse on cannabis policy, and especially the potential consequences of reform, is replete with claims based on different interpretations of the facts, different facts altogether, different concerns and different aspirations (Miller, 2020). These conflicting views are usually expressed in narrative form and used in the creation of persuasive stories within the policy process (Soriano et al, 2021;Stevens & Ritter, 2013).…”

“…Parallel to this development, adolescent cannabis use seems to be on the rise in Norway (Bakken, 2018(Bakken, , 2020Bye & Bretteville-Jensen, 2020) and scholars suggest there is a shift in the cultural context of cannabis usefrom being associated with underground subcultures (Sandberg, 2013), cannabis is increasingly viewed as a mainstream drug (Duff et al, 2012;Hathaway et al, 2016;Seddon, 2020). The role of political narratives within the ongoing drug-policy debates is therefore important, as they contribute to shaping public perceptions about the consequences of various policy formulations Soriano et al, 2021), as well as the wider cultural and normative context in which cannabis use is understood (Duff et al, 2012).…”