TY - JOUR

T1 - Media panic, medical discourse and the smart phone

AU - Madsen, Lian Malai

PY - 2022

Y1 - 2022

N2 - This article investigates a space of upset related to the smartphone with its communicative affordances and implications. A useful way of conceptualizing spaces of upset and their discursive frames is Cohen’s (1999 [1972]) notion of moral panic. Informed by this concept and accounts of the panic discourses particularly directed at media (Drotner 1999), I examine the upset articulated in Danish media panic discourses which grants authority from a medical perspective. In addition, I draw on the concept of medicalization (Zola 1972) and discuss how it becomes sayable within the space of upset related to digitally mediated communication that human interaction through a technological device is not (always) communication, but habit or addiction, to unpack the socio-cultural and sociolinguistic assumptions and implications of this perspective. Empirically, the article focuses on a particularly preeminent voice in the public debate in Denmark about the impact of social media and smartphone use, namely the voice of a medical doctor who has been granted the authority as “digital health expert” and frequently appears in Danish print-, broadcast- and social media.

AB - This article investigates a space of upset related to the smartphone with its communicative affordances and implications. A useful way of conceptualizing spaces of upset and their discursive frames is Cohen’s (1999 [1972]) notion of moral panic. Informed by this concept and accounts of the panic discourses particularly directed at media (Drotner 1999), I examine the upset articulated in Danish media panic discourses which grants authority from a medical perspective. In addition, I draw on the concept of medicalization (Zola 1972) and discuss how it becomes sayable within the space of upset related to digitally mediated communication that human interaction through a technological device is not (always) communication, but habit or addiction, to unpack the socio-cultural and sociolinguistic assumptions and implications of this perspective. Empirically, the article focuses on a particularly preeminent voice in the public debate in Denmark about the impact of social media and smartphone use, namely the voice of a medical doctor who has been granted the authority as “digital health expert” and frequently appears in Danish print-, broadcast- and social media.

U2 - 10.1515/ijsl-2021-0052

DO - 10.1515/ijsl-2021-0052

M3 - Journal article

VL - 2022

SP - 111

EP - 128

JO - International Journal of the Sociology of Language

JF - International Journal of the Sociology of Language

SN - 0165-2516

IS - 275

ER -