Journalistic discourse influences the public agenda and shapes the discourse as well as social and political lives. Journalism studies distinguish between mediated scandal, media hype, news waves and media events — approaches that help to understand why the phenomena of media gives extraordinary space, time and attention to certain events or topics. The steady flow of everyday news does not generally allow for the introduction of issues that are unknown to the public or require either a specific vocabulary or prior knowledge. Intensive media coverage can however act as a catalyst by directing the public attention to new social issues. This article examines how the press intensively reported the high profile arrest of Estonian drug traffickers in Thailand, initially emotively and subjectively, but in doing so raised public awareness and shaped the social drug discourse in Estonia.
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