#whose primary corpus is less than a thousand years old

[semperintrepida]

Descriptions and metaphors I haven’t been able to use while writing stories set in Ancient Greece:

anything related to clocks ("tick of time", "like clockwork") or smaller units of time (minutes and seconds)

anything related to gunpowder ("exploded", "cannoned")

machine-related terms ("motored", "pistoned", "windmilled", "[do something] mechanically")

electronic terms ("flipped a switch", "closed the circuit", "picked up the signal")

sneakily anachronistic idioms ("called their bluff", "show their hand")

the concept of adrenaline (and cousins dopamine and serotonin)

any reference to the brain being the source of intellect

so many medical/anatomical concepts — air can be breathed into the chest, but nothing about oxygen in the blood, energy in the blood, blood cells, etc

L-shaped, U-shaped — no such letters by those names in the Greek alphabet

I'm sure I've let plenty of anachronisms slip into what I've written for the AC: Odyssey fandom over the years, but I've tried my best to honor the time period. Every description and metaphor in fiction comes from the POV character (or omniscient narrator), and the words on the page should only be things they would know. (Maybe one day I'll write a little essay about third person limited/close POV and all the ways I adore it.)

That said, AC: Odyssey has a few temporal slip-ups of its own. My favorite is characters saying "okay"—and I'm eternally grateful for that because it means I can use it in my stories guilt-free.

Anyway, it's fun to ride the line between authenticity and pedantry.

[manipulative-media]

Why do They Want us to know this?: News Media’s Framing of the Opioid Crisis

For Americans under the age of 50, drug overdose is the leading cause of death. The New York Times estimates that drugs claimed the lives of over 59,000 Americans in 2016, a 19 percent increase from the previous year. Since the emergence of this issue, now described as an epidemic, the news media has covered hundreds of thousands of stories regarding opioid abuse. Dr. Emma McGinty from the Department of Health Policy and Management led a team of researchers who examined the content of such stories released between 1998 and 2012. Her results suggest that the news media may have had a profound effect on the consensus of the general public. The study identifies different approaches used by news media providers to emphasize specific features of opioid abuse in America. An author’s process of presenting a certain viewpoint of a much larger story is known as framing.

https://twitter.com/9gag/status/570199000114188288

This image illustrates how news media sources have the ability to tell a story in a manner that benefits their specific application of that story. 

Frames can be made evident through a process of evaluation called framing analysis. A key component to framing analysis is exposing the distresses a news story chooses to highlight, then recognizing who the story deems responsible for such distress. News stories are closely related to narratives because they combine factual information with implicit messages. The news media conglomerate controls what its society sees and thus influences how they feel about events that shape their understanding of the world. Media framing, combined with an individual’s personal experience, and social exchanges, come together to form a person’s opinions on an issue. Framing analysis gives news consumers the ability to distinguish how the media wants them to perceive an event. The opioid crisis has been reported through a number of different frames as communicated by the news media’s terminologies and reiteration of standpoints. Most opioid news frames seem to be episodic, meaning the content of the article focusses on specific circumstances relating to the opioid crisis, rather than taking the overarching condition of the issue into account.

As the death toll from drug overdoses continue to rise, it is crucial for policy-makers and news media outlets to present opioid addiction as a treatable disease. The social stigma toward addiction that has been instigated by the news media’s framing of opioid abuse needs to change if we want to make any headway in suppressing the epidemic. The news media’s coverage of the opioid crisis sways people’s opinions of addicts and policy-makers who are responsible for finding a solution. This paper intends to identify frames employed by news media sources in reports involving opioid abuse; through this framing analysis, I aim to enhance the readers understanding of the sheer impact that news media sources have on society, as it pertains to the opioid crisis.

Framing analysis is an important tool within the field of communication because it allows researchers to study how trends in the media effect society as a whole. The media and the news that derive from its sources facilitate people’s interpretation of the world. When a multi-faceted story reveals itself, it is broken down and interpreted frame by frame for the purpose of supporting different viewpoints and ideas. The framing theory suggests that information bearers present certain pieces of information and disregard the rest, for the purpose of supporting a much larger concept. A study published in the Journal of African American Media Studies executed a framing analysis of comments made by readers responding to the Cape Argus newspapers coverage of the Green Point Stadium construction. The building project was a conflicting topic of debate for Cape Town residents in 2007. The stadium would be used for tournament play in the 2010 World Cup, which projected to bring national attention and economic growth to the city. Cape Argus newspaper chose to cover stories that depicted a harmful image of the stadium. Readers’ comments on Argus’ news articles reveal conflicting racial, class, political and sporting identities in South Africa. The study examines Cape Argus’ news reports through an environmental and racial affairs frame. In one news article, the Cape Argus newspaper releases statements from CEPA (Cape Town Environmental Protection Association), claiming that the organization had acted “in the public interest and those whose environmental and administrative justice rights under the constitution have been violated” (Chuma, 2012). This was in reference of CEPA’s attempt to halt the Green Point Stadium building project. The racial divide stems from citizen’s contradictory opinions of the stadium. The study claims that “supporters of the soccer stadium identified or sought to identify themselves as Black and working class/poor while opponents of the stadium came across as wealthy, or at least well-off, Whites” (Chuma, 2012). These assumptions were supported by readers’ comments that hurled insults at the opposition. For example, one comment reads, “only a bunch of old white dinosaurs were opposed to the stadium” (Chuma, 2012). The study analyzes these news reports through an environmental frame since conservationism efforts were the primary focus of the opposition’s argument.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/18/business/global/hip-cities-that-think-about-how-they-work.html

The news media’s framing of the opioid crisis exists so that its effects can be broken down into different areas of concentration; in my analysis I address frames such as, health, resource (cost), economy, and politics. Essentially, different media outlets uncover and interpret information varyingly depending on the underlying purposes of their news story. The opioid epidemic has provided media outlets with an extensive amount of content that can be used to highlight their implicit messages. This capacity gives news media conglomerates an opportunity to use opioid abuse stories to take on related matters such as, healthcare- reform, funding, policy-procedure, or issues that plague the American economy. “By highlighting certain aspects of issues, the news media can influence how the public and policy makers perceive the causes of and appropriate responses to a given issue” (McGinty, 2016).

The media frequently criticizes the healthcare industry for enabling the opioid epidemic and profiting off those who became addicted to prescription painkillers. Weather its doctors, pharmacists, insurance companies, treatment centers etc. news stories often blame healthcare providers for the opioid crisis when reporting from a health frame. This sort of causal framing intends to hold someone responsible for the issues it presents. When news stories pertaining to the opioid crisis hold one person/organization solely responsible, people believe the issue is less complex than it actually is. Consequently, news media consumers who don’t conduct framing analysis's have a much narrower view of the issue and are easily influenced to support underdeveloped solutions that fail to address the overarching problem.

https://voyant-tools.org/?corpus=ee55c2b13c399f8c6fcdbe8e7df0365d

A broad view of the primary verbiage used in a NY Times article that defends pain patients who’ve experienced backlash from insurance companies that now refuse to cover their opioid medications.

In an article from ProPublica, the author presents a limited view of the opioid crisis in her attempt to demoralize United HealthCare’s handling of specific cases regarding substance abuse. The article uses framing techniques to deem insurance companies responsible for patient suffering. The report highlights a particular case involving a woman who experienced difficulties getting coverage for her opioid medicine to alleviate the “stabbing pain in her abdomen.” The woman, whose name is Alisa Erkes, along with her pain specialist, Dr. Jordan Tate were interviewed about the negative experience she had with United HealthCare. Matt Wiggin, a spokesman for United HealthCare and Dr. Andrew Kolodny, a critic of extensive opioid prescribing were also interviewed. The author’s choice and assemblage of quotations is a clear indication of media framing. Leo Beletsky, an associate professor of law and health sciences at Northeastern University was quoted talking about the current insurance system, asserting that she believes it is “one of the major causes of the [opioid] crisis” (Thomas, 2017). The terminology used by the author makes all insurance companies seem greedy and immoral, which speaks to her audiences insights. Moreover, the report incorporates an expense frame to further emphasize how unacceptably costly it is for patients to obtain their opioid medications because their insurance providers no longer cover the drug. Frontline made a documentary called “Chasing Heroin” that focuses on specific stories of individuals who became addicted to heroin as a result of doctor’s overprescribing painkillers. The documentary appeals to viewer’s emotions more so than their cognitions since it focuses on people’s lives and the consequences of their addiction.

In order to produce viable solutions to the opioid crisis, resources need to be identified and accurately accounted for. Such resources include, treatment centers, medical personnel, education, and the one thing that makes it all possible, money. The news media continuously reports on the opioid crisis through a cost frame. Since articles on the opioid crisis intend to propose definitive solutions to multi-billion dollar problems, they need to present expenses and anticipate the cost of resources. In an editorial piece that evaluates the impact of repealing the affordable care act, the authors disclose the devastatingly high number of addicts who aren’t able to receive treatment because they cannot afford it. “1 in 10 Americans with substance use disorders receive treatment. Nearly one-third of all those who did not seek treatment cite cost or lack of insurance coverage as a reason” (Wen, 2017). The article goes on to describe the importance of Medicaid in regard to treating opioid addiction. The authors conclude that preserving Medicaid is ultimately the most cost-effective solution to the opioid crisis. “No matter what, the American people will bear the cost of this epidemic-either by paying for treatment now or by paying for the medical, economic, and social consequences of denying it later” (Wen, 2017). The article influences the reader’s opinions of Medicaid as a cost-effective healthcare supplier. A New York Times article confronting president Trump’s announcement of the opioid crisis as a “national emergency,” (Haberman, 2017) implements a resource and political frame. The political frame stems from Haberman’s choice to focus on the inactivity of the president since his proclamations about “spending a lot of time, a lot of effort and a lot of money on the opioid crisis” (Haberman, 2017).  

https://www.themarshallproject.org/2017/08/30/trump-sells-snake-oil-on-opioids#.8O3LbpxKe

This graphic depicts president Trump’s unsympathetic policy on drug abuse as framed by Maria Mcfarland Sánchez-Moreno, author of “Trump sells snake oil on opioids.”

News media’s coverage of opioids often present politically motivated frames that influence the public’s perception of policymakers and other government officials. Depending on political dynamics, a news story may choose to concentrate on the abuse of opioids as an issue of criminal activity or as a treatable health condition. Despite rumors of fake news, the framing of stories released through the media matter not only to the news consuming public but to politicians as well. Haberman’s New York Times article draws attention to Trump’s unfulfilled promises and undisclosed diplomacies on the subject of funding crucial resources used to treat the opioid crisis in America. Although the president has declared the opioid crisis to be a state of national emergency, the media commonly frames opioid abuse as an issue of criminal justice. “Among stories mentioning any cause, illicit drug dealing was mentioned most frequently (57% of news stories)” (McGinty, 2016). The negative portrayal of the opioid crisis further intensifies the social stigma that addicts have a choice. The news media’s application of Trump’s comments on drug policy, in a politically framed [opioid crisis] news articles tend to support left-wing enthusiasts. The media’s uncovering of evidences, as it pertains to the opioid crisis and politics, allow news media sources to sway the public’s discernment of political representatives. In a Washington Post article, the author exhausts all attempts to deprecate president Trumps attitudes toward the war on drugs. The article employs an all-out offensive on the credibility of the president, I’d label the line of attack as using a Trump’s a racially motivated bigot frame. The author assesses Trump’s judicial approach to the opioid crisis saying he’s “ignored the public health-focused recommendations of [his] own opioids commission by invoking the language of law and order” (McFarland, 2017).

An economic frame is an important and rather rare frame to use in regard to the opioid crisis because it recognizes the direct impact of opioid abuse on the job market. An opinion piece from NPR titled “Opioid Crisis Looms over Job Market, Worrying Employers and Economists” focuses on manufactures who have had to outsource for employees because of widespread opioid use in the workplace. This economic frame used by the author of this article provides readers with a more complete perspective of the consequences caused by the opioid crisis.

We know employers who just don't want to know, Miller says. 'Don't drug test them, we don't want to know.' It's not necessarily the best practice, but it is something that they do because they need people, and they need them so badly. (Noguchi, 2017)

https://www.npr.org/2017/09/07/545602212/opioid-crisis-looms-over-job-market-worrying-employers-and-economists

This graphic reveals the estimated impact that substance abuse has recently had on the American workforce environment. 

Statistics show the decline in the percentages of American workers since the dawn of the opioid epidemic. CEO’s of manufacturing companies are interviewed and asked about their drug policies. Although they claim to have a zero-tolerance drug policy, they admit it would be challenging to find labor if that were entirely true.

Having an awareness that media framing exists and sustaining the ability to conduct a framing analysis is critical to understanding the underlying concepts that are present in the news media. The removal of biases and concealed agendas allow news consumers to candidly retain their own opinions while simultaneously cultivating other people’s perceptions. Overconsumption of the news media can alter standpoints to reflect ideologies dissimilar from our own natural reactions and responses. Debating who’s to blame for the opioid crisis will not incite change. The news media has an important role to play in determining future standpoints of this national epidemic. Negatively portraying addicts and pointing fingers will not save lives or create new resources. Motivating everyday citizens to contribute their time, effort, and money to assist family members, friends, neighbors, coworkers, or strangers who struggle with addiction is highly positive frame to incorporate in a news story. If the news media takes a more positive approach on the topic of the opioid crisis, people may be more inclined to make change rather than waiting for someone or something to happen.

https://voyant-tools.org/?corpus=ee55c2b13c399f8c6fcdbe8e7df0365d

The bulk terminology found in Dr. Emma McGinty’s examination of the news media’s framing effect on the opioid crisis. Terminology is a critical aspect of framing theory. Consider what gives a news story its newness.