‘Selling by drugs’: Content analysis of the coverage of illicit drugs in different news media types and formats

Abstract

Aims: News media coverage of drugs represents an important source for public perceptions of illicit drugs, which shape national drug policies. The aim of this article is to acknowledge differences between media types and formats, which are often neglected in the literature, so that drug field professionals can target them efficiently in order to achieve balanced media coverage of drug issues.Methods: We coded a total of 8380 Czech news media articles from 2007 related to drugs and drug use and analysed them with respect to their characteristics and drug-related coverage. With the use of multinomial logit models, two hypotheses were tested: (1) media types and formats differ with respect to their drug-related contents, and (2) media sources differ across media types and formats.Findings: Significant differences in drug-related coverage between media types and formats were found, except for public and private TV and the partisan and serious press; the media sources differed significantly across all media types and formats, public and serious media allow a broader range of sources. An exploratory analysis showed that there was a greater likelihood of TV and radio broadcasting supply reduction news, while tabloid journals, the partisan press, and local newspapers featured crime-related drug coverage.Conclusion: Drug field professionals can shape their media outputs to the needs of differing media types and formats, such as local media, which allow for direct contact with individual reporters, or audio-visual media, which require competent direct speakers.