An Inquiry into Discursive News Coverage, Popularization and Presuppositions Concerning Military PTSD Treatment Options

Since 1980, when the term was officially associated with soldiers’ traumas during combat, PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) has reemerged due to a significant increase in patients and its revision in DSM-V (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders). The media have contributed in disseminating information, promoting awareness and opening debates on the patients, the cure (Brent and Penk 2011) and the implementation of experimental PTSD treatments (Donovan 2010). The most contested consists in “memory dampening” or “memory enhancing” medication that helps patients cope but has raised questions on the ethical, legal (Kolber 2006; Snead 2011) and moral (Gross 2006) importance of memories, as well as its effect on soldiers’ formation and perception (Moreno 2008). The present study observes how articles in favor of memory-modifying medication and of alternative treatments are framed and sustained in USA news published over the past 20 years. Corpus-Assisted Critical Discourse Analysis (Baker 2004; Garzone and Santulli 2004; Degano 2006; Freake 2012) is applied to identify relevant linguistic and discursive strategies in terms of text organization, lexical choices, expert advice, popularization, and common cultural references.