Release Date
Geography
Language of Resource
Full Text Available
Open Access / OK to Reproduce
Peer Reviewed
Objective
The current study uses narrative analysis and framing theory to explore the series "Dopesick" (2021), discussing its portrayal of the people and themes involved in the USA opioid crisis.
Findings/Key points
Our analysis found that although Dopesick attempts to portray multiple dimensions of the opioid crisis, its narrative oversimplifies the story in attributing the cause of the problem almost exclusively to Purdue Pharma and its director Richard Sackler, while downplaying other factors that contributed to the opioid crisis. Thus, the narrative in this TV series tends to offer simple explanations to a complex problem for which simple solutions are likely to be inadequate.
Design/methods
Using scenes as the unit of analysis, two researchers analyzed the content independently, while a third one supervised the process. The two independent analyses were compared, and discrepancies or disagreements were settled through discussion with the third researcher. The results were merged into a single dataset.
