Innocent Addictions: Discourse Analysis of Media Coverage of Pharmaceutical Dependence in Australia

Media coverage of non-medical pharmaceutical use has consistently presented it to be a “different” kind of drug problem, one that involves substances not typically thought of as drugs of abuse or addiction and among people not normally associated with illicit drugs and the “criminal addict.” Though differential media treatment of dependence on criminalized drugs versus pharmaceutical products is well documented in the North American context, less is known about how the Australian media covers the issue of pharmaceutical dependence. In this study, we conducted a discourse analysis of Australian media articles between 2018 and 2023 that covered dependence on pharmaceuticals. We found that media accounts use discursive frameworks to speak about pharmaceutical dependence that differentiate it from “drug addiction,” or from the way dependence on criminalized substances are typically constructed as a social issue. Media stories present pharmaceutical dependence as a “hidden problem,” made up of those unlikely to become addicted to drugs, people who are suffering genuine physical pain and for whom medical systems of care have failed. These emphasized differences are notable in part because they contradict the claims made by the now popularized bio-medical model of addiction, that addiction does not discriminate, that it is a disease that can impact anyone, and that its effects on individuals are universal. This paper draws on critical addiction studies and the sociological concept of iatrogenesis in order to highlight the power relations and political judgments involved in media representations of pharmaceutical dependence, especially that which arises in the context of medical treatment. Despite seemingly progressive attempts to destigmatize addiction in this media reporting, we demonstrate how the examples used to illustrate the issue draw on long discursive histories which associate whiteness with innocence and reinforce the unquestioned benefit of contact with the medical establishment.