Addiction is one of the most stigmatised diseases. Media portrayals with negative connotations usually play an important role in the development of stereotypes, prejudices and discrimination against population groups perceived as different in cases of addiction. Substance-related addiction is portrayed as misbehaviour and a sign of personal weakness rather than an illness, which raises the threshold for those affected to seek help and makes early preventative intervention more difficult. Against this background, the aim of our cooperation project with Prof. Dr Georg Schomerus from Leipzig University Hospital, funded by the Federal Ministry of Health, is to analyse media reporting on the subject of addiction and to produce a media guide. This guideline is intended to provide media professionals with concrete tips that can be implemented under realistic working conditions on how people with substance-related addictions should be portrayed in the media so that the social stigma is not reinforced, but ideally the reporting even helps to reduce it.

The media guide can be found and downloaded here (only available in German).