What Causes Addiction Problems? Environmental, Biological and Constitutional Explanations in Press Portrayals From Four European Welfare Societies

Abstract

Press items (N = 1327) about addiction related problems were collected from politically independent daily newspapers in Finland, Italy, the Netherlands, and Poland from 1991, 1998, and 2011. A synchronized qualitative coding was performed for discerning the descriptions of the genesis to the problems in terms of described causes to and reasons for why they occur. Environmental explanations were by far the most common and they varied most between the materials. The analysis documents how the portrayals include traces of their contextual origin, relating to different media tasks and welfare cultural traditions. Meaning-based differences were also assigned to the kind of problems that held the most salience in the press reporting. A general worry over societal change is tied into the explanations of accumulating addiction problems and underpins the press reporting in all countries.

Formula Stories of the “Substance-Using Client”

“…Researchers have also argued that the formula story in which opiate addiction is an incurable condition tends to become a self-fulfilling prophecy in the treatment system (Järvinen, 2014; Järvinen & Andersen, 2009). Cross-cultural studies have revealed that international differences in circulating stories about substance use problems can be traced back to different welfare cultures in different countries (Beccaria et al, 2015; Hellman et al, 2015; Hellman & Room, 2015). In the Nordic countries, the welfare system is characterized by “social democratic” principles such as universalism and an institutionalized commitment to welfare (Esping-Andersen, 2006).…”

“…Studies on media coverage (Beccaria et al, 2015; Hellman & Room, 2015; Törrönen, Simonen, & Tigerstedt, 2015; Winter, 2016), social media (Dwyer & Fraser, 2016), classical literature (Allamani & Mattiacci, 2015), and film (Egerer, 2013; Room, 2015) demonstrate that storytelling and conceptualizations of substance use problems vary over time and place. Cross-cultural variations in media narratives are found to reflect basic beliefs and assumptions that societies hold about people with substance use problems (Beccaria et al, 2015; Hellman, Majamäki, Rolando, Bujalski, & Lemmens, 2015; Hellman & Room, 2015).…”

‘Alcohol short-circuits important part of the brain’: Swedish newspaper representations of biomedical alcohol research

“…Campbell 2012); and press portrayals (e.g. Hellman et al 2015) to identify the perspectives used to frame addiction problems. For example, biological explanations were not found to be predominant in press portrayals of addiction problems in Finland, Italy, Poland, and the Netherlands (Hellman et al 2015).…”

“…Hellman et al 2015) to identify the perspectives used to frame addiction problems. For example, biological explanations were not found to be predominant in press portrayals of addiction problems in Finland, Italy, Poland, and the Netherlands (Hellman et al 2015). However, in the present article, reductionism is instead conceptualized as the extent to which the media reports of biomedical alcohol research focus on biological factors only.…”

“…Thus, compared with studies of the general media framing of addiction problems (e.g. Hellman et al 2015), the present study addresses how biomedical alcohol research is represented in the Swedish media, instead of analyzing tendencies of medicalization in the overall Swedish media reporting on alcohol.…”