The role of the media in the science-policy nexus. Some critical reflections based on an analysis of the Belgian drug policy debate (1996–2003)

Framing Science: How Opioid Research Is Presented in Online News Media

“…The relatively low level of coverage, as well as the limited use of research references in the news stories, is perhaps unsurprising considering various disruptions in the media environment in the last two decades-technological advances, novel ways of news production and consumption, and sinking ad revenues (Waldman, 2011;Anderson et al, 2016;Barthel, 2017)-that have led to the decline of specialized reporting, including science journalism (Dunwoody, 2014;Schäfer, 2017). Still, one might expect that research studies would feature more prominently in news stories covering a public health crisis as urgent as the opioid epidemic, especially since sharing expert knowledge has been shown to play an important role in shaping public opinion, informing policy, and guiding effective interventions in this area (Lawrence et al, 2000;McCann, 2008;Tieberghien, 2014).…”

Cannabis in Danish newspapers

“…in 2004. This indication of 'cyclic' or 'event-centred' press coverage (Paimre, 2015;Tieberghien, 2014) can also be seen with the topic of medical cannabis, which generally has a very low relative proportion that only increases periodically around the turn of the century and in the past three years. The law enforcement topic also has notable peaks, which correspond to 'celebrated cases' such as the disruption of major smuggling operations, while the legalization topic has several peaks coinciding with a number of policy proposals, to which we shall return later.…”

“…medicinal and juridical) in these two periods in order to identify continuity and/or change over time. Other studies have focused on more specific cannabis-related issues, such as cannabis legalization (Tieberghien, 2014), medicinal cannabis (Sznitman and Lewis, 2015) and stigmatized cannabis users (Haines-Saah et al, 2014). Our aim is to conduct a broad longitudinal analysis similar to the one conducted by Månsson (2016), in order to quantify the prevalence of various newspaper framings of cannabis, and examine their longitudinal patterns, such as their temporal relationship to current law enforcement and policy events.…”

“…Our aim is to conduct a broad longitudinal analysis similar to the one conducted by Månsson (2016), in order to quantify the prevalence of various newspaper framings of cannabis, and examine their longitudinal patterns, such as their temporal relationship to current law enforcement and policy events. Additionally, we aim to examine whether these framings vary according to the target population of different newspapers -nationwide versus regional distribution, for instance -building on previous research finding regional variations in press coverage (Månsson, 2016;Tieberghien, 2014).…”

“…An often cited study in the drugs field was conducted by Fan (1996), who used statistical inference to demonstrate a strong correlation between American newspaper portrayals of an ongoing 'drug crisis' and a dramatic increase in general public opinion survey responses naming drug use as the United States' most important problem (from 5% to 60% in the years [1985][1986][1987][1988][1989][1990][1991][1992][1993][1994]. More recently, Tieberghien (2014) analysed the coverage of drug policy in Belgian newspapers and found a narrow focus on cannabis legalization, which meant that the policy positions available to e.g. politicians who appropriated the newspaper discourse were reduced to either 'for' or 'against' cannabis legalization.…”