NCJ Number
218201
Date Published
2007
Length
18 pages
Annotation
This chapter examines the differing symbolic framework used in British newspapers in reporting on volatile substance abuse (VSA) and ecstasy.
Abstract
The chapter begins by noting the disproportionate attention given to the risks associated with ecstasy consumption and the relative lack of national newspaper interest in VSA despite its significantly greater "risk" compared to ecstasy, as measured by annual mortality rates. This suggests that the symbolic frameworks used to represent ecstasy and VSA in newspaper coverage involve widely shared cultural assumptions regarding the effects of VSA and ecstasy. The continuation of these symbolic frameworks as the basis of newspaper reporting on the use of these substances involves political, cultural, and financial factors. The symbolic frameworks of news reporting are shaped by the politics, class, and economic interests of news sources. The symbolic frameworks reproduced in news discourse reinforce moral evaluations not only of kinds of substances but also of the ways in which substances are consumed and the types of people consuming them. VSA, for example, is viewed as repulsive because of the nature of the substances themselves, the ways and settings in which they are used, and the kinds of people who use VSA for a psychoactive effect. Although ecstasy is portrayed as highly risky or dangerous, it is not portrayed as "dirty" or "grubby" in the same way as solvent abuse. 71 references