Peering Down at the Junkie: Authority and the Visual Construction of Drug Users in TIME’s “Opioid Diary”

Abstract

Focusing on the 2018 special issue of TIME entitled “The Opioid Diaries,” this study examines the way drug users are visually framed through both an embodied image-making process and a constructed end product. Using a multimodal analysis, it argues that James Nachtwey’s images created a simplified view of addiction while inserting an asymmetrical power dynamic between the depicted subject and viewer. This study also examines how images can carry and construct discourses of drug use, which have been used historically for social and institutional discipline such as harassment, arrest, and methadone treatment programs.