Drugs and the media in the era of postmodernity: an archaeological analysis

Abstract

This article addresses the vast heterogeneity of UK media reports on illicit drugs by applying Michel Foucault's archaeological methodology. Accordingly, the media reports are classified to reflect their connections within a discursive formation that is itself situated within the milieu of postmodernity. By using the binary oppositions of private-public and societal-subcultural as classificatory axes, the author identifies four categories of media statements on drugs, which possess particular discursive vantage points. The variations of statements within these categories are explored at length, as are their contradictions. The paper concludes by advancing Foucault's archaeology as a valuable contemporary methodology for understanding the nature of the moral and epistemological claims which discourses make.