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Many researchers have found that the news media, now more than ever, have a huge influence on how ordinary citizens think and view the world. The way in which the media frames an event or socially constructed issue will determine how the average person views the problem. Framing is selecting “some aspects of a perceived reality and mak[ing] them more salient in a communicating text, in such a way as to promote a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation, and/or treatment recommendation for the item described”(Robert Entman 391).
In other words framing is the practice of influencing how people think and feel about issues by encouraging them to think about them in a particular way. This is done with a discursive language that appeals to images and values that people know and understand deeply. In my news media framing assignment I will be analyzing how the news has portrayed and framed InSite – The only safe injection site for drug addicts in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver B. C. I will do this by firstly by examining the issues being framed by the news media and what authoritative figures are being addressed on the issues.
Secondly I will address where the media places and constructs the article to influence the reader. And finally I will argue why this issue is important and look at how the media uses authoritative figures and facts to persuade the reader to believe one side of the issue. This will be made possible by analyzing 14 articles that discuss the controversy of the safe injection sites. One of the issues being framed in the articles consists of whether or not these injection sites should remain legal and continue to expand into more areas where there is a high rate of drug addicts abusing drugs and overdosing.