Designation Practices and Perceptions of Addiction – a Diachronic Analysis of Finnish Press Material from 1968–2006

Abstract

The study is a diachronic investigation into how addiction is designated in the leading Finnish daily newspaper in the period 1968–2006. It discusses how different designations practices for the concept of addiction are reflected in understanding of the phenomenon. Material and Proceedings Newspaper materials consisting of randomly sampled (n=432) issues of Helsingin Sanomat (HS) served as a base for the investigation. Texts were selected that discuss addiction in ways set out in the inclusion criteria. A total of 34 (=n) texts were analyzed more closely, taken from the years 1972, 1982, 1992 and 2002. Results Two main tendencies can be discerned from the 1990s and onwards. The journalistic pieces start to work an internalization of the problems, i.e. they mediate a perspective from within the problems. Simultaneously, the concept of addiction becomes conventionalized and its use expanded. The cultural unit of addiction starts to include all types of problematic repetitive behavior. The article discusses how these trends serve the general trends towards individualization and medicalization. The expert statements accounted for in the media guide the individual–-the citizen, the consumer, the potential or actual addict–-in the landscape of the logics and mechanisms of addiction.