Drug Use in the Media

According to Goode the truth of about the way society perceives drug culture is made up of the stories the media chooses to reveal to society. It seems that during certain periods of time the media chooses a different drug to be a core social dilemma. This causes society and its rule enforcers to crack down on this certain population.
However other times the media takes a more relaxed standpoint which can cause society to divert their attention from the issue or find it more socially acceptable. This leads to media bias. Again according to Goode there are two types of bias:
factual-“making factually and empirically false claims or assertions in order to justify a particular moral, ideological, or political position”
and selection- “focusing on the facts that support a particular slant or position and ignoring those that undermine it.”
Goode says there are four theories of media bias:

• The ruling elitist theory with contends that the media purposely caters to the ruling elite.
  
• The “money machine” theory which contends that the owners of major media have no political interest and are only interested in the “bottom line”-or basically what their population (viewers/readers ect.) wants to hear in order to turn a profit.
  
• The populist “grassroots” theory which also contends to media population (viewers/readers ect.) by reporting stories in ways that are inspiring to them. Therefore it is the media is therefore controlled by the media’s population and the stance the media takes can be influenced by the audience.
  
• The professional subculture theory which contends that the media approach the stories according to professional journalism standards. Goode uses the example of verifying information with two or more sources. Therefore media bias can be biased by the standards of media itself (117-120).