The Opioid Crisis In News Media Analysis

The opioid crisis is just that: a crisis. One of the most major health epidemics currently inflicting America, opioid use creates an environment of addictive behavior and subsequent overdoses and deaths across the country. At the present time, “An estimated 2.6 million people in the United States are addicted to opioids” (Andrews, 2017). Just as this crisis has infiltrated the American public, it has also saturated the news media. However, it is not simply the opioid crisis dictating the news content; rather, the crisis and news stations play off of one another, feeding into each other. Whereas the opioid crisis is a story in-and-of itself, the news media frame the crisis and influence public perception of the epidemic. Specifically, there are four predominant frames utilized in news media when reporting on the opioid crisis; these frames include the experimental frame, investigative frame, fatality frame, and crime frame. A major influence on the opioid epidemic is not only the drugs themselves, but also how the drugs and epidemic are discussed and presented in the news. Specifically, news framing plays a major role in how news consumers understand and cognitively interpret the opioid crisis. Framing theory is the idea that how something is presented to an audience influences the way people think about

At present, treatment involves substituting one drug, such as heroin, with another, such as methadone, in hopes that addicts’ usage will eventually taper off” (Andrews, 2017). Thus, there is a prominence of language and ideas aligned with opioid addiction as a disease in need to treatment. With the main focus of the article using this conception of the crisis as the platform for experimental research, Andrew (2017) adopts the experimental frame as a way of discussing the opioid