Social Media, Addiction Stigma, and Public Perception: A Critical Analysis of the Double Effects of Stigma Communication on Adolescents
Abstract
China has achieved remarkable success in controlling illicit substance use, with one of the world's lowest rates of drug overdose mortality. Yet public stigma toward individuals with substance use disorders (SUD) remains severe. This paper explores how China's deterrence-oriented media narratives produce a dual effect on adolescent audiences, focusing on platforms on the Internet such as news, social media, and film/television. By using critical discourse analysis, this passage will study the dual effect among these platforms. The analysis finds that news, social media, and film/television platforms construct a unified narrative that equates addiction with crime and violence, which effectively reduces substance use initiation while simultaneously deepening stigma toward SUD patients. Three mechanisms are identified: semantic narrowing of "addiction" to illicit drugs, absence of biological explanations, and invisibility of recovery narratives. By integrating Chinese scholarship with international stigma frameworks, this study reveals the unintended systemic cost of deterrence narratives and offers theoretical foundations for destigmatization efforts targeting individuals, microsystems, and macrosystems.
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