ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the construction of the two social issues, sexual assistance and suicide, through the 'frames' used in the media. Discussing frames requires reconsideration of how participants understand or describe the situations or activities in which they participate. More particularly, the media focus is on how the variety of people involved attempt to impose a cognitive frame in order to come to terms with a social issue, with the knowledge that this frame can affect participants' and observers' understanding of the issue according to how it has been formulated. The chapter, based on analysis of ten TV programmes and articles on sexual assistance and suicide in French-speaking Switzerland published between 2008 and 2015, reveals that the discussions around these two types of assistance lead to the development of specific rights for concerned populations, rights of a more moral than social order.
