Order Description
1. Select the Psychoactive Drug – Select a drug or class of drugs to study. For example, you might select to study a single drug like alcohol or tobacco, or you can pick a class of drugs like CNS depressants, stimulants, hallucinogens, antidepressants, etc. Whatever drug(s) you elect to study, it must be a psychoactive agent.

2. Drug Representation – Examine the way in which the drug has been represented in the media over the past 30 or more years. You should focus on interpreting what you see in the media.

3. Select the Media – You can analyze the representation of the drug(s) by focusing on one type of media or you can incorporate multiple media in your analysis. For example, you might focus exclusively on films or advertising and examine the way in which alcohol use has been represented over time. Or you might examine the representation of alcohol in films, music, and print media.

4. PowerPoint – This information will be used to create a dynamic PowerPoint presentation, the goal of which is to critically analyze what you see. The presentation should be between 15-20 slides in length and there should be an appropriate balance between words and images.
5. What to Address – the PowerPoint presentations should clearly address all of the following:

(a) In what way has using the selected psychoactive drug been represented? Are the consequences of drug use depicted as negative (“using marijuana will make you go insane”) or positive (“drinking burpee beer will make you popular”). If the consequences are portrayed as negative, is there any indication of therapy or treatment?
(b) Have there been any changes in the way in which the drug has been portrayed over time? What are the changes?
(c) What are the possible consequences of representing a drug in a particular way?
(d) What does your textbook have to say about the drug under study?

The PowerPoint can include examples of film clips (no longer than 5 minutes per film), text, narration, songs, web sites, advertising in print media, or anything else you can think of. All examples (images, videos, audio material) must be referenced (i.e., image downloaded from NIH). It is not sufficient to say that your images were retrieved from Google, you must include the original source. Include the source directly in your slide (if it isn’t too big) or in the notes section below the main body of the slide.