Leiden University Student Repository

Kivits, Leonore (2024)

The Shifting Rhetoric of American Conservative Newspapers during the Crack Epidemic and the Opioid Crisis

Bachelor thesis | International Studies (BA)

This thesis uses critical race theory to investigate and explain the ways in which the media discourse of the opioid crisis compared to the crack epidemic. This research combines critical discourse analysis and digital methods to analyze the narratives and rhetoric of a range of articles published in the National Review. These findings are compared to published secondary literature that explore trends in media coverage about the crack epidemic to draw conclusions about the shifting media narratives between the 1980s and 2010s. The findings reveal that 1980s media largely constructed crack users as the perpetrators of the crack epidemic. At the same time, the media largely promoted the key components of the War on Drugs campaign, include more regulation and criminalization. Coverage of opioid users contrastingly, were met with greater empathetic concern and their recovery became seen as a priority. By exploring these findings through the lens of critical race theory, this research...Show moreThis thesis uses critical race theory to investigate and explain the ways in which the media discourse of the opioid crisis compared to the crack epidemic. This research combines critical discourse analysis and digital methods to analyze the narratives and rhetoric of a range of articles published in the National Review. These findings are compared to published secondary literature that explore trends in media coverage about the crack epidemic to draw conclusions about the shifting media narratives between the 1980s and 2010s. The findings reveal that 1980s media largely constructed crack users as the perpetrators of the crack epidemic. At the same time, the media largely promoted the key components of the War on Drugs campaign, include more regulation and criminalization. Coverage of opioid users contrastingly, were met with greater empathetic concern and their recovery became seen as a priority. By exploring these findings through the lens of critical race theory, this research finds that these narratives reveal significant racial inequities of conservative media coverage.Show less

Critical Race Theory

Intersectionality

White Backlash

Interest convergence theory

crack epidemic

opioid crisis

discourse

Author

Kivits, Leonore

Faculty

Faculty of Humanities

Specialisation

North America

Supervisors

Andrew Gawthorpe

ECTS Credits

15

Language

en