By: Abby Anerella ❤️
***This is a research paper I just finished writing as my final term paper for my English class. Before you go, "a research paper? Really?", I researched this question for me, but I mostly researched it for you. I had every single person who has ever clicked my website in mind while I was writing it. It's also why I took so long to post a new blog (whoops!). If you hate it, well, at least you learned something new. ;)***
Atticus Finch in To Kill A Mockingbird said, “you never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view, until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.” Arguably one of the most popular books from the mid-1950s is inclusive of an ideation that society fails to follow in the 21st century when it comes to mental health. If you really think about mental health in its entirety, unless you have experienced a mental disorder, or been subjected to one through a loved one, you will find that you actually don’t know very much. You will find that you have a false sense of perception of what it means to be schizophrenic, depressed, anxious, bipolar, “so OCD.” On top of that, if you go even further to find out why it is that your education on mental health has been failed, you will stumble across one very common denominator: the media. As somebody who has been diagnosed with OCD, the most frustrating part of my life was trying to understand why nobody understood me. I tried so hard to understand why the term “so OCD” was used light heartedly instead of being prayed for. It wasn’t until I had gone to an outpatient therapy facility for my diagnosis that I was able to understand what people struggled to understand for themselves. You are not failing mental health, the media is failing you. Stigma is defined as “a mark of disgrace associated with a particular circumstance, quality, or person (Oxford Dictionary).” To say the media has stigmatized mental health is an understatement. But exactly what role does the media play in the stigmatization of mental health? The media stigmatizes mental health through false portrayals, lack of proper knowledge, and the use of harmful dialect.
A false portrayal of a mental health disorder in the media is one of the main causes of the stigma centered behind it. What exactly do I mean by false portrayal? Well, if your idea of someone with Schizophrenia is a hallucinatory bat out of hell head case, you are one of the many members of society believing this widely popular representation of Schizophrenia. Or, if your idea of someone with OCD is a color coordinated closet and an organized bedroom, you are one of the many members of society believing the negative stereotype inhabiting OCD. In the 21st century, the media is our sole form of communication with each other. How accurate the media is in communicating its points has been widely debated for decades, but when it comes to mental health, the inaccuracy of media portrayal should continue to be debated for decades to come. Heather Stuart, a professor at Queen’s University for Public Health Sciences, Bell Mental Health, and Anti-Stigma states, “One in four mentally ill characters kill someone, and half are portrayed as hurting others, making the mentally ill the group most likely to be involved in violence (pg. 100).” Stuart emphasizes here that 25% of mentally ill characters are violent, meaning that violence is a common stereotype associated with mental illness. In the media, 25% of mentally ill characters are violent. In reality, 3-5% of those struggling with a mental disorder are violent (“Mental Health Myths and Facts.”). Later on in the article, Stuart (2006) states, “Whether for grim or for comic effect, the mental health field has been consistently portrayed as a place where unbalanced and malevolent individuals thrive (pg. 100).” The created idea that mental health individuals inhabit a degree of malevolency will be a hard egg to crack if the media keeps inaccurately portraying what it is like to be in a 1-to-1 battle with your brain. Those struggling with mental health are not damaging to society, they are the most damaging to themselves.
Lack of proper knowledge lies in the media’s lack to properly educate society, and the media’s lack to properly educate themselves. Stuart (2006) states, "In a national prospective study of New Zealand news items dealing with mental health or mental illness, Nairn and Coverdale could identify only five stories out of 600 (0.8%) that offered perspectives from people who had been diagnosed with a mental disorder (pg. 101)." How are you supposed to properly represent a group of people if you don’t take them into consideration? The media lacks legitimacy and reliability if their narratives of the mentally ill never actually address the lens of someone whose feet have been in the shoes. Naveed Saleh, author of “How the Stigma of Mental Health is Spread by Mass Media” discusses how reports of mental health lack proper knowledge and how to fix these reports. Saleh (2023), in talking about the grieving relatives of committed suicide, states, “Out of humanitarian considerations, the media should avoid disturbing them for a sound bite. The relatives and friends are unlikely to reveal earth-shattering news but may say things which they would regret later (pg. 6).” If only in search of good coverage, and not in search of condolences, the media only does harm in its depiction of suicide. By disturbing grieving relatives for a “sound bite”, the relatives are not properly equipped to speak on their experience with a clear conscience. Only when you have properly grieved, taken time to yourself, and understood the circumstances, should you go out and speak about personal experience. Any forced media coverage too early in the grieving process will only do harm to the family as well as harm to the stigma behind depression. In talking about how to properly report issues concerning mental health, Saleh discusses how humanizing mental illness, offering hope to persons with mental disorders, encouraging people with mental illness to seek help, and giving accurate information about psychiatric disorders are all ways the media can properly educate society.
The use of harmful dialect is one that not many people realize they engage in on a daily basis. One of the most common ways any stigma is created is through normalizing the use of something damaging. For example, the word “crazy” has become such a repetitive word in people’s vocabulary that the damage such vocabulary does to society is far overlooked. For something to become so normalized wouldn’t it of had to had start at a young age? Brian Smith, undergraduate student at St. John Fisher University, takes a closer look at examining stigma in children’s programming. Smith (2015) states in reference to children, “The media is important, because it helps to shape attitudes that will be carried with them into adulthood (pg. 4).” Smith goes on to discuss how harmful dialect in relation to mental illness is highly prevalent in Disney films, “negative labels were given to mentally ill individuals in the films. These labels also included phrases such as ‘crazy,’ ‘psycho’, and ‘lunatic.’... These negative messages, especially coming from popular movies, could stick with children as they grow up and impact their levels of stigmatization going forward (pg. 5).” Especially in today’s day in age, the media has more of an impact on children than it does to any other age group. The most recent generation of kids grew up only knowing media such as social media, movies, tv shows, etc. The messages spread by the mass media onto children, like in Disney films, only normalize the use of harmful dialect to those with mental health disorders. When something so harmful becomes so normalized, false perceptions of mental health are created, and those suffering from its knife are now “crazy”, “psycho”, or a “lunatic”. This is something children will learn when they are young and unfortunately carry on into adulthood. However, children’s films aren’t the only mass media inclusive of harmful dialect. Smith also examines the use of harmful dialect in news media, “Research conducted by Coverdale, Nairn, & Claasen (2002) in New Zealand... looked for phrases such as “mad,” “insane,” “go completely bananas” … the research compiled 562 sources (pg. 6).” There were 562 sources inclusive of the words “mad”, “insane”, or “go completely bananas” when research was conducted on mental health. 562 sources. 562 ways a mental health disorder was stigmatized. 562 authors who failed the ones who struggle.
To say the media has failed those living with mental health disorders only does justice to how much damage they have really done. As someone who has been subjected to the stigmatization of mental health, I only hope that society gets to a place where depression is grieved for instead of laughed at. Where OCD is prayed for instead of praised. Where schizophrenia is understood instead of shied away from. False portrayal from the media doesn’t highlight grief, prayer, or acknowledgement... it highlights jokes, praise, and disgust. The media portrays 1-in-4 mentally ill individuals to be violent. Reality sees that 1-in-20 mentally ill individuals are violent. 5% as opposed to 25% falsely portrayed by the media. Lack of proper knowledge lies in the media’s lack to properly educate society and themselves. Only 0.8% of media coverage for mental health involves the perspective of someone who has lived its life and fought its battle. This means that 99.2% of media narrates mental health under false knowledge and inaccurate information. Harmful dialect has become so normalized when mental health is brought to the table, especially in children’s media. The word “crazy” not only re-iterates negative views of mental health, but also gives no room for someone struggling with mental health to be viewed as “normal.” Changing the stigma is something I will continue to hold near and dear to my heart. The amount the media stigmatizes mental health is something I will never understand, nor ever empathize with. There is such power in the hands of the media, but there is also great power in you. How will you change the stigma?
“Mental Health Myths and Facts.” SAMHSA, www.samhsa.gov/mental-health/myths-and-facts#:~:text=Myth%3A%20People%20with%20mental%20health,with%20a%20serious%20mental%20illness. Accessed 4 Dec. 2023.
Person. “Mental Illness in the Media: The Myths and Stigma Spread by Media.” Psych Central, Psych Central, 17 May 2016, psychcentral.com/lib/medias-damaging-depictions-of-mental-illness#1. Accessed 14 Nov. 2023.
Saleh, Naveed. “How the Stigma of Mental Health Is Spread by Mass Media.” Edited by Amy Morin, Very Well Mind, 16 Jan. 2023, www.verywellmind.com/mental-health-stigmas-in-mass-media-4153888. Accessed 14 Nov. 2023.
Smith, Brian. The Review: A Journal of Undergraduate Student Research, 2015, fisherpub.sjf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1150&context=ur. Accessed 14 Nov. 2023.
Stuart, Heather. “Media portrayal of mental illness and its treatments: what effect does it have on people with mental illness?.” CNS drugs vol. 20,2 (2006): 99-106. doi:10.2165/00023210-200620020-00002. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16478286/. Accessed 14 Nov. 2023.
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