The Least of These: How Eduardo Diaz's Image of Drug Users in Pakistan Offers an Alternate Media Representation of Addiction

Keary, Polly

doi:10.1111/cccr.12146

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…More specifically, media depiction of the scale of the 'drug problem' has been illustrated to influence policy directions on drug use. The cultural representation of drugs has historically been dramatised and exaggerated by media, and as a consequence the public rhetoric around them carry messages of fear and trauma, consistent with what scholars have identified as 'moral panics' (Keary, 2017). Furthermore, the view that drug use is entirely attributable to hedonistic, individualistic and personal choice that supposedly leads to uncontrollable violent behaviour oversimplifies drug use.…”

Section: Framing Of Drugs As Public-safety Crisismentioning

confidence: 64%

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

Soriano

David²,

Atun

2019

Journalism

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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.

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Section: Framing Of Drugs As Public-safety Crisismentioning

confidence: 64%