scholarly journals Changes in the Estonian Cannabis Debate

2017 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 54
Author(s):  
Marianne Paimre

The article analyses the discussion of cannabis regulation in the Estonian media. In the past five years, there has been a noticeable shift in discussion of drug policies in some Western countries and regions (the US, Canada, Latin America, etc.) from a punitive focus towards a more liberal approach. The Global Commission on Drug Policy recommends that countries put an end to civil and criminal penalties for drug use and possession. In this context, the article examines how the Estonian press has reacted to the situation. Which approach to cannabis (continuing to ban it vs. advocating legalisation) prevails in opinion pieces? What are the main arguments both for and against its legalisation? The media could play a prominent role in determining public opinion about illicit drugs and shaping relevant public policies. Hence, the author looks also at how the coverage has changed over time. A content analysis of 57 opinion articles, editorials, comments, interviews, and summaries of public speeches was carried out to study the political debate surrounding cannabis in 2009 and 2015, both years in which it was high on the media agenda. The content analysis was complemented by the method of close reading. The findings indicate that press coverage of cannabis has become more tolerant towards ‘softer’ drug policies. The chorus of ‘voices’ has become more complex, which reflects development of the drug-politics discourse. While the 2009 debate was launched by pro-legalisation lawyers and the discussion involved various professional experts (among them medical doctors, lawyers, and specialists in drug prevention), cannabis more often made headlines in 2015 because of work by civil activists, columnists, writers, etc. A strong dichotomy between traditional law-enforcement discourse and cannabis-legalisation and harm-reduction discourses has emerged. The author expresses the opinion that a shift in the global drug-policy debate alongside softened media coverage may pave the way for changes in the national drug policy. 

BMJ Open ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (9) ◽  
pp. e023485
Author(s):  
Caroline Louise Miller ◽  
Aimee Lee Brownbill ◽  
Joanne Dono ◽  
Kerry Ettridge

ObjectivesIn 2012, Australia was the first country in the world to introduce plain or standardised tobacco packaging, coupled with larger graphic health warnings. This policy was fiercely opposed by industry. Media coverage can be an influential contributor to public debate, and both public health advocates and industry sought media coverage for their positions. The aim of this study was to measure the print media coverage of Australian’s plain packaging laws, from inception to roll-out, in major Australian newspapers.MethodsThis study monitored mainstream Australian print media (17 newspapers) coverage of the plain packaging policy debate and implementation, over a 7-year period from January 2008 to December 2014. Articles (n=701) were coded for article type, opinion slant and topic(s).DesignContent analysis.ResultsCoverage of plain packaging was low during preimplementation phase (2008–2009), increasing sharply in the lead into legislative processes and diminished substantially after implementation. Articles covered policy rationale, policy progress and industry arguments. Of the news articles, 96% were neutrally framed. Of the editorials, 55% were supportive, 28% were opposing, 12% were neutral and 5% were mixed.ConclusionsProtracted political debate, reflected in the media, led to an implementation delay of plain packaging. While Australian media provided comprehensive coverage of industry arguments, news coverage was largely neutral, whereas editorials were mostly supportive or neutral of the policy. Countries seeking to implement plain packaging of tobacco should not be deterred by the volume of news coverage, but should actively promote the evidence for plain packaging in the media to counteract the arguments of the tobacco industry.


2022 ◽  
Vol 2022 (0) ◽  
pp. 1-28
Author(s):  
Carlos Muñiz ◽  

During election campaigns the mass media favor political debate, giving relevant issues a particular framing. In this coverage the use of the conflict frame stands out, and although it usually presents politics as an exercise of confrontation and attack, it can also show it as a process of discussion and the exchange of opinions. A content analysis was conducted on television and press news during the 2018 presidential and the 2021 federal legislative elections in Mexico. The findings confirm the existence of two differentiated frames, that of “conflict” and that of “discussion and political agreement”. Furthermore, a connection between the two frames was detected in the media coverage of the campaigns.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Benny Nuriely ◽  
Moti Gigi ◽  
Yuval Gozansky

Purpose This paper aims to analyze the ways socio-economic issues are represented in mainstream news media and how it is consumed, understood and interpreted by Israeli young adults (YAs). It examines how mainstream media uses neo-liberal discourse, and the ways YAs internalize this ethic, while simultaneously finding ways to overcome its limitations. Design/methodology/approach This was a mixed methods study. First, it undertook content analysis of the most popular Israeli mainstream news media among YAs: the online news site Ynet and the TV Channel 2 news. Second, the authors undertook semi-structured in-depth interviews with 29 Israeli YAs. The analysis is based on an online survey of 600 young Israelis, aged 18–35 years. Findings Most YAs did not perceive mainstream media as enabling a reliable understanding of the issues important to them. The content analysis revealed that self-representation of YAs is rare, and that their issues were explained, and even resolved, by older adults. Furthermore, most of YAs' problems in mainstream news media were presented using a neo-liberal perspective. Finally, from the interviews, the authors learned that YAs did not find information that could help them deal with their most pressing economic and social issue, in the content offered by mainstream media. For most of them, social media overcomes these shortcomings. Originality/value Contrary to research that has explored YAs’ consumerism of new media outlets, this article explores how YAs in Israel are constructed in the media, as well as the way in which YAs understand mainstream and new social media coverage of the issues most important to them. Using media content analysis and interviews, the authors found that Young Adults tend to be ambivalent toward media coverage. They understand the lack of media information: most of them know that they do not learn enough from the media. This acknowledgment accompanies their tendency to internalize the neo-liberal logic and conservative Israeli national culture, in which class and economic redistribution are largely overlooked. Mainstream news media uses neo-liberal discourse, and young adults internalize this logic, while simultaneously finding ways to overcome the limitations this discourse offers. They do so by turning to social media, mainly Facebook. Consequently, their behavior maintains the logic of the market, while also developing new social relations, enabled by social media.


2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 171-187
Author(s):  
Taha Siddiqui

Valentine’s Day celebration in India has been much debated and covered by the media in the last couple of years. In the year 2009, far right Hindu activist from Sri Ram Sena to Bajrang Dal were involved in beating up unmarried couples and blackening their faces, as mark of shame for celebrating Valentine’s Day. They claimed that the festival was a “western practice” and promotes “lust not love”. Following this other Anti- Valentine’s Day groups also expressed their views and this led to public debate about moral policing and Indian culture. However what is interesting to note is the fact how media covered. At one side media has played a big role in promoting it (for many reasons) and on the other hand it has also criticized it for cultural and religious concerns.This research tries to explore in depth how media covers the festival with commercialization, culture, religion and politics in the backdrop. The research studies 9 newspapers of in 3 different languages, namely English, Hindi and Urdu.  The study tries to find out whether media is biased in covering the festival or is it propagating an idea to its readers. The idea of taking 3 different languages is to draw a sharp comparison and contrast among the national and vernacular newspapers.In order to find it, both quantitative and qualitative methods have been applied to the articles. Content analysis and Textual analysis are the important methods used to find out the statistics and underlying meanings behind these articles.Int. J. Soc. Sc. Manage. Vol. 3, Issue-3: 171-187


1991 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 42-63 ◽  
Author(s):  
David T. Courtwright

One thing that all parties in the American drug-policy debate agree upon is the desirability of eliminating the traffic in illicit drugs and the esurient criminal syndicates that control it. There are two divergent strategies for achieving this end. The first is the war on drugs. The second, which emerged in the late 1980s as a highly controversial alternative to the drug war, is controlled legalization. What follows is a historically informed critique of both approaches.


2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 261-282 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Van Aelst ◽  
Rosa van Santen ◽  
Lotte Melenhorst ◽  
Luzia Helfer

AbstractThis study on the role of media attention for the Dutch question hour answers three questions: to what extent is media attention a source of inspiration for oral parliamentary questions? What explains the newsworthiness of these questions? And what explains the extent of media coverage for the questions posed during the question hour? To address this, we present a content analysis of oral parliamentary questions and related press coverage in five recent years. The results show first that oral questions are usually based on media attention for a topic. Concerns about media influence should however be nuanced: it is not necessarily the coverage itself, but also regularly a political statement that is the actual source of a parliamentary question. The media are thus an important “channel” for the interaction between politicians. Second, our analysis shows that oral questions do not receive media attention naturally. Several news values help to explain the amount of news coverage that questions receive. “Surfing the wave” of news attention for a topic in the days previous to the question hour seems to be the best way to generate media attention.


Author(s):  
Hamdani M. Syam ◽  
Nur Anisah ◽  
Rahmat Saleh ◽  
Abdul Rani Usman ◽  
Dini Khairani

In addition to having the freedom to spread news to the public, the press also have the freedom to search and process news. In exercising that freedom, journalists always consider that news must be interesting so that people want to read it. The media coverage of sex, including stories on rape, sexual harassment, adultery, cheating, and sordid topics, is a news value that has a high rating for people. Sometimes in the economic interests of the media, journalists violate the norms and ethics of the news. This study is aimed to examine through content analysis the coverage of sex in the Harian Rakyat Aceh newspaper, which from January to April 26 featured 54 articles related to sex. This study examined this coverage in the context of Indonesia’s implementation of the journalistic code of ethics. Indonesian journalists are prohibited from mixing facts and opinions and from reporting sadistic and obscene news. Using the Holsti formula, inter-coder reliability resulted in a CR of 0.99, showing strong reliability. After data collection, coding sheets were analyzed using SPSS software to determine the results of each category. This study found that the news value of the 54 articles in the Harian Rakyat Aceh newspaper is considered to have violated the journalistic code of ethics. Thus, it can be assumed that there is an economic interest in the media’s reporting of sex in that newspaper.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 227-247
Author(s):  
Philippe Dubois ◽  
Katryne Villeneuve-Siconnelly

This article assesses the media treatment of the Catalan referendum on independence (October 2017) in the Québec context. By conducting a quantitative and deductive content analysis of articles published in the four major Québec newspapers, we analyse how Québec newspapers frames the conflict regarding their historical editorial position about the Québec independence project. In addition, we examine how the comparison between Québec and Catalonia fit into the media coverage. Our results confirm the dominant use of the conflict frame for media coverage of political issues. They also point out the importance of internal and institutional factors like the importance of press agencies or the presence of correspondent on the ground as features influencing frames. In terms of editorial position, data suggest that similar issues between two stateless nations do not automatically involve a similar media treatment. We suggest the concept of ‘projection effect’ to bring nuances to the ‘mirror effect’ proposed in the literature.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 192-199 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ekwutosi Sanita Nwakpu ◽  
Valentine Okwudilichukwu Ezema ◽  
Jude Nwakpoke Ogbodo

Background: Part of the role of the media is to report any issue affecting the society to the masses. Coronavirus has become an issue of transnational concern. The importance of the media in the coverage of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Nigeria and its implications among Nigerian populace cannot be overestimated. This study evaluates how Nigerian media depict the coronavirus pandemic and how the depictions shape people’s perception and response to the pandemic. Methods: The study employed a quantitative design (newspaper content analysis and questionnaire). The content analysis examines the nature of media coverage of coronavirus in Nigeria and China using four major national newspapers (The Sun, The Vanguard, The Guardian and The Punch). The period of study ranged from January 2020 to March 2020. A total of 1070newspaper items on coronavirus outbreak were identified across the four newspapers and content-analysed. Results: The finding shows that the coverage of the pandemic was dominated by straight news reports accounting for 763 or (71.3%) of all analysed items. This was followed by opinions 169(15.8%), features 120 (11.2%) and editorials 18 (1.7%) respectively. The Punch 309 (28.9%)reported the outbreak more frequently than The Sun 266 (24.9%), The Guardian 258 (24.1%), and Vanguard 237 (22.1%). Finding further suggests that the framing pattern adopted by the newspapers helped Nigerians to take precautionary measures. Conclusion: Continuous reportage of COVID-19 has proved effective in creating awareness about safety and preventive measures thereby helping to ‘flatten the curve’ and contain the spread of the virus. However, the newspapers should avoid creating fear/panic in reporting the pandemic.


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