Do “Smart Pills” Make You Smarter? News Media Coverage of ADHD

Abstract

The surge in prescriptions for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder medication is a global phenomenon. However, there has been growing concern globally about the misuse and abuse of ADHD medications among students. Hence, this article explores how ADHD is represented in news articles. In addition, this study examines online news coverage of ADHD treating medications in South Korea. News articles in the Yonhap news (n=275), the largest national news agency, and daily newspapers (n=250) from 2012 to 2016 were collected from NAVER, the biggest portal news archive in South Korea. A mix of a quantitative and qualitative content analysis was conducted to examine the ways in which the news media portray ADHD, both in terms of its cause and of its medications. Yonhap news referred to ADHD as “biological”, while daily newspapers defined its cause as “psychosocial”. The findings also showed that ADHD medication for the disorder’s treatment was portrayed as neutral in Yonhap, while online versions of daily newspapers treated ADHD medication positively. Moreover, news articles tended to use data to connect ADHD drugs with study performance or a higher school grade.