Media Representation of Drug Addicts and Drug Addiction in the Croatian Daily Press

• Main Authors: Ljiljana Kordić, Hajrudin Hromadžić, Jurica Karlić
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Faculty of Political Science, University of Zagreb 2017-12-01
• Series: Medijske Studije
• Subjects: drug addicts; drug addiction; media; representations; sensationalism
• Online Access: https://hrcak.srce.hr/192918

This article articulates and examines the problem of how to represent addicts and addiction in media content. The authors conduct a quantitative and qualitative content analysis of selected daily press in Croatia (Jutarnji list, Večernji list and 24 sata) from 2015 and a sub-analysis of the target period (Anti-addiction Month) serving to compare two different news cycles. The media coverage of the examined themes, the connotation of such media content and the approach to this issue are analysed. This article provides insight into how addiction, as well as drug addicts, is represented in the selected media, and the implications and consequences such representations carry with them, while exploring the questions such as why these types of representations are present, and whose interests are represented in such representations.