Frame analysis of drug narratives in network news coverage (2017)

Mass media sources influence numerous aspects of society including public perceptions of social problems and public policy. Illegal drugs have been stigmatized in the U.S. media for decades using particular frames, devices, and rhetorical practices, which have contributed to the social construction of drug use as deviant behavior. This article examines the ways in which U.S. media sources have framed news stories of heroin and cocaine. It analyzes a sample of 197 national broadcast transcripts of National Broadcasting Company and American Broadcasting Company evening news segments focusing on heroin and cocaine between 2000 and 2015. A content analysis of frame elements was employed to identify the most salient features of each news broadcast, and hierarchical cluster analysis was then performed to identify the predominant frames in media coverage over time. The identified frames are Ongoing Fight, Dangerous Use, Violent Traffickers, and Fallen Star. News coverage primarily emphasized drug seizures and other efforts to stem supply, risks associated with drug use, violence involved in the drug trade, and tragic or controversial events surrounding public figures. Some substantive differences were noted in media narratives throughout the studied time period, such as the conflation of the War on Drugs with War on Terror discourse between 2000 and 2009 and the predominance of the disease model and notions of a drug "epidemic" between 2009 and 2015. However, I argue that media framing of drugs has not evolved substantially from the stigmatizing representations prevalent in 1980s and 1990s U.S. media reports.