REPRESENTATION OF MENTAL HEALTH

An issue which has been represented in a variety of ways - both positive and negative - is the issue of mental illness and mental health.

The media is an important source of information for many people about mental illness.

Harmful reporting

• A 2006 German study found that students who read negative articles about mental illness expressed more negative attitudes toward people with a mental illness.

• A 1997 study found that media accounts of mental illness that instil fear have a greater influence on public opinion than direct contact with people who have a mental illness.

• A number of international studies (1983, 1989) demonstrated that exposure to negative stories, both fictional and nonfictional, had a direct effect on attitudes which was not altered by subsequent exposure to positive stories.
• Research undertaken in 2007 by Mindframe found that 10.6% of stories in Australian media about mental illness were stigmatizing and 5.8% of reports used inappropriate or negative language.

• An Australian study (1991) found that electronic and print media coverage often reflects and perpetuates the myths and misunderstandings associated with mental illness

• A survey by SANE Australia from 2005 found that 95% of consumers believed that negative portrayals of mental illness had an effect on them and 80% reported that the effect was negative.

Reporting that can have a negative impact:

• Highlights tragedies involving untreated mental illness, contributing to community fear and isolation for those affected by mental illness

• Does not provide balance. People with a mental illness are not inherently violent, unable to work, unpredictable, untrustworthy, weak or unable to get well

• Implies mental illness is a life sentence that cannot be treated - most people are able to recover with treatment and support

• Exaggerates a person’s illness or the affect mental illness has on their behaviour

• Implies all mental illnesses are the same. The term ‘mental illness’ covers a wide range of symptoms, conditions, and effects on people’s lives

• Mocks or trivialises mental illness by using medical terms (such as bipolar) out of context

• Features negative terms such as ‘mental patient’, ‘nutter’, ‘lunatic’, ‘psycho’, ‘schizo’ and ‘mental institution’, which stigmatise mental illness and perpetuate discrimination.

Responsible reporting

• A 1999 American study also found that the media is an important source of information about mental health issues.

• SANE research from 2007 found that inaccurate and prejudiced assumptions about people with a mental illness could be reduced through increased accurate and helpful reporting in the media.

• A 2007 study which tracked reporting of suicide and mental illness in the Australian media found the majority of items about mental illness did not stereotype people affected as violent, unpredictable, unable to work, weak, untrustworthy or unlikely to get better.

• The same study found media items about mental health/illness had increased two-and-a-half-fold in volume between 2000/2001 and 2006/7.

Reporting that can have a positive impact:

• Breaks down myths about mental illness and allows people who have experienced mental illness to tell their own stories

• Highlights the complexity of mental illness. The term ‘mental illness’ covers a wide range of symptoms, conditions, and effects on people’s lives

• Highlights stories about successfully managing a mental illness

• Provides accurate information about mental illness and specific mental disorders

• Bases information on reliable sources such as recommended experts

• Encourages people in distress to seek help, for instance by providing helpline numbers

• Uses appropriate language and avoids victimising words such as ‘afflicted’ or ‘suffers’

• Follows media codes of practice on privacy, grief and trauma.

A key theory of any representation is the use and construction of stereotypes. 

How have people with schizophrenia been stereotyped by the character of the Joker in The Dark Knight?

Consider how the stereotype has been constructed using the character's Appearance and Behaviour...
(Write on your blog)

Any representation is a construction of the media - this means that we must consider the opinions of both: those who have encoded the text and those that have decoded the text. Put simply - the creators and the audience.

This next sequence is from Farren Aranofsky's avant garde film Pi. The director wants us to identify with the character Max as he descends into madness. The audience is encouraged to be part of Max's mental breakdown.

How is this achieved by the director using; camrea movement, framing, editing and sound?
(Write on your blog)

As we move on to looking at how mental health is represented by television we see that stereotypes are, again, commonly used. In some very negative ways.

The following video is from the sketch show Little Britain and features a character with severe learning difficulties called Anne.

This could be read as a very derogatory and spiteful stereotype of people with such problems, but it might also be read as mocking our own preconceptions of learning difficulties, or even the media itself for having such a limited representation of such issues.

So who is being mocked?

• Anne (and others with learning difficulties)?
• The audience?
• The media?

 You decide - and remember to consider how the stereotype is constructed.
(Write on blog)

Television soap-operas have always been issue led. With well developed characters and continuous storylines they have always had the ability to help the audience understand and explore various issues in society. Sometimes sympathetically, sometimes controversially, sometimes breaking taboos.

The nation's favourite, Corrie, has been at the forefront of issue led soaps for more than fifty years and 2011 saw the show tackle the issue of Alzheimers' focussing mostly on the experiences of those caring for someone suffering from the disease.

When analysing any representation we must consider the views of the audience and decide whether they have responded with a preferred, negotiated or oppositional reading to the text.

Read the following article from http://www.dementia.co.uk/ to see how they view Corrie's portrayal of such a serious illness - at the bottom of the document are responses to the article from audience members. Decide what type of reading they have made...

Corrie and alzheimers from sssfcmedia

Watch this clip from one of the more moving episodes. What are your opinions?

Lastly we look at how newspapers tackle the issue of mental health - and how the entire issue has been mediated by the press.

Mediation is a three part process which takes and issue, event, person, thing or group of people and puts it through the 'media machine' - what we see on our telly or in the papers is clearly not a straightforward relection of reality but a distortion of reality. Images have been framed and thousands are taken, words are chosen carefully, fonts, layout, colours are all part of this decision making process that means that the reality of something goes in to the media at one end and the mediated version gets spat out the other!

We can divide the mediation process into three functions:

• Selection
• Organisation
• Focus

 Consider the images below - they are all newspaper front pages that  cover the story of former British Heavyweight Boxer Frank Bruno and his battle with severe depression. Specifically his time spent in a hospital to recover.

Bruno had spent the past 30 years in and out of the media for his sporting achievements and as a celebrity figure.

As you can see some of the front pages offer a different representation of mental health - some more negative than others - think carefully about how every word and every picture has been through the process of: Selection. Organisation and Focus...

Whilst the copy is matter of fact and largely objective, the selection of photo
seems to suggest what the real views of the Telegraph are in this front page. However
the focus of the article may actually be more concerned with the Mental Health Act.

This typically sensationalist and unsympathetic headline from The Sun caused much controversy and
was actually pulled from later editions. Interestingly, they use a similar image to that of the Telegraph.

 

Like the Telegraph the Daily Express seems objective but the selection of the phrase 'Mental Home'
makes it quite clear how they view illnesses such as those suffered by Bruno.

 

This seems like the most sympathetic and least exploitative but is worthy of analysis - think about the selection of words, the type of photo taken - are we encouraged to pity, to voyeuristically watch from a safe distance?

 

You'll always be able to find positive and negative representations of mental health anf mental illness in the media - keep looking for them and writing about them but remember to make sure your analysis is based within theory.

Here is a little checklist of media theories surrounding representation...

• Stereotyping
• Mediation
• Construction
• Ideologies
• Archetypes

If you find any interesting representations of mental health then please blog it and link or embed videos or images along with your analysis.