Popular media and bioethics scholarship: sharing responsibility for portrayals of cognitive enhancement with prescription medication

The use of prescription medications for the cognitive enhancement of healthy individuals has been a captivating and contentious subject in the media and in the bioethics literature. This chapter provides an overview of the roles the media have played in reporting features of the nonmedical use of prescription medications by healthy individuals for enhancement and the influence the media have exerted on academic discourses. We note the broadening of media coverage from trend reporting to taking on research questions of the prevalence and efficacy of cognitive enhancement. We also reflect on the emergent contribution of messages via social media in online discussions about cognitive enhancement. Messages from traditional and social media are often based on anecdotal evidence and may perpetuate misrepresentations of cognitive enhancement especially when referenced by academic researchers. Such misrepresentations may harbor underlying normative messages that can influence the behavior of individuals. The different forms of media and academic bioethics share a responsibility to portray cognitive enhancement in a light that reflects current evidence and does not encourage the nonmedical use of medications based on anecdotal experiences