Publications
Publication details [#4741]
Fraser, Suzanne. 2006. Speaking addictions: Substitution, metaphor, and authenticity in newspaper representations of methadone treatment. Scaffale aperto 33 (4) : 669–698. 30 pp. URL
Publication type
Article in journal
Publication language
English
Keywords
Abstract
Press coverage of addiction tends to be prolific if not always accurate or considered. This article examines the ways in which methadone treatment is reported in three respected daily newspapers, the New York Times, the Times (London) and the Sydney Morning Herald. To conduct this analysis I focus on the role of metaphor, asking what impact the use of metaphor - both to figure methadone and to mobilize it as a figure for other phenomena - has in this context. In the process I consider the status of metaphor itself within Western liberal discourse, and trace the ways in which methadone treatment can be seen not only as a resource for, and object of, metaphorical description and production.
(Suzanne Fraser)