Otto F. Wahl

Mass media images of mental illness: A review of the literature

Studies that address the frequency, accuracy, and impact of mass media portrayals of mental illness are reviewed. Numerous studies of frequency and content of media depictions support clinical observations that mental illness is frequently depicted in the mass media, particularly the entertainment media, and that these depictions tend to be inaccurate and unfavorable. Limitations, such as age of the studies and mixed attention to psychiatry, psychology, and mental illness, however, leave a need for further such studies. Investigations of the specific impact of media images of mental illness support the belief that media presentations about mental illness, including those in entertainment form, can have significant effects on attitudes toward mental illness and treatment. These studies, however, are few in number and have demonstrated only short-term effects of specific portrayals. Further research is needed to demonstrate longlasting effects and the overall impact of multiple, repeated, media depictions.

Impact of a newspaper article on attitudes toward mental illness

The authors investigated the effect of reading a newspaper article reporting a violent crime committed by a mental patient (target article) on attitudes toward people with mental illnesses. The authors also investigated the effect of corrective information (prophylactic articles) on the attitudes of readers of the target article. Student participants responded to questionnaires which included the Community Attitudes Toward Mental Illness (CAMI) scales to assess their views of and reactions to people with mental illness. The authors found those reading the target article without first reading a prophylactic article reported harsher attitudes toward those with mental illness than participants who either read a prophylactic article prior to reading the target article or who read articles unrelated to mental illness. These findings support the assertion that negative media reports contribute to negative attitudes toward people with mental illnesses, and that corrective information may be effective in mitigating the effect of these negative reports.

Impact of a television film on attitudes toward mental illness

The possible impact of a prime time television film portraying a mentally ill killer was investigated. Groups of college students were shown the film with and without a film trailer reminding viewers that violence is not characteristic of mentally ill persons. A third group viewed a film not about mental illness. Postfilm responses to the Community Attitudes toward the Mentally Ill scale indicated that those who saw the target film expressed significantly less favorable attitudes toward mental illness and community care of mentally ill persons than did those who saw the control film, regardless of whether of not they received the trailer along with the target film. Results support concerns that media depictions add to mental illness stigma and also suggest that corrective information alone may be sufficient to counteract the stigmatizing impact of such audience-involving mass media portrayals.

News Media Portrayal of Mental Illness Implications for Public Policy

Newspapers are a primary source of information about a variety of topics, including mental illnesses. A study of 1999 newspapers revealed that dangerousness is the most common theme of stories about mental illnesses. In contrast, stories of recovery or accomplishment were found to be rare. The ratio of negative to positive stories involving mental illness decreased between 1989 and 1999, but negative stories continued to far outnumber positive ones. The potential influence of these patterns of news coverage on public attitudes and public policy are discussed.

Evaluating the effectiveness of a consumer-provided mental health recovery education presentation.

The current study investigated the effectiveness of the In Our Own Voice (IOOV) mental health education program in improving knowledge and attitudes about mental illnesses. Undergraduate participants (N = 114) completed three pre-test measures of knowledge and attitudes, attended either an In Our Own Voice presentation or a control presentation about psychology careers, and repeated the three measures following the presentation. Results indicated that the IOOV group showed significant positive change across time, as well as significantly greater improvement than a control group in their knowledge and attitude scores on all measures. These findings support the effectiveness of the IOOV program.

Depictions of mental illnesses in children's media

Background: It has been suggested that media portrayals help to perpetuate the negative perceptions and attitudes of the public toward people living with mental illnesses. Children are significant consumers of mass media, and they may be learning about mental illnesses from their exposure to media depictions of those illnesses. Aims: This article is intended to explore how psychiatric disorders are portrayed in childrens media. Methods: Studies of the depiction of mental illnesses in childrens media are reviewed. Results: Studies of television, films, cartoons, and other media suggest that images and references to mental illnesses are relatively common in childrens media and that such images are more often negative than positive ones. The image of persons with psychiatric disorders as unattractive, violent, and criminal, for example, appears common in childrens media, and references to mental illnesses are typically used to disparage and ridicule. Conclusions: Although content analyses do not establish impact, it is likely that negative stereotypes are being fostered and that children are learning to respond to people with mental illnesses in avoidant and disparaging ways. Anti-stigma efforts that do not include children and do not address the media images of mental illnesses that foster unfavorable stereotypes may permit continued development of negative attitudes toward people with psychiatric disorders.

Television images of mental illness: Results of a metropolitan Washington media watch

One third of prime‐time television programs involved information about mental illness. Negative stereotyping of mentally ill persons was found to be prevalent in these programs.

Cultural sutures : medicine and media

Medicine and the media exist in a unique symbiosis. Increasingly, health-care consumers turn to media sources—from news reports to Web sites to tv shows—for information about diseases, treatments, pharmacology, and important health issues. And just as the media scour the medical terrain for news stories and plot lines, those in the health-care industry use the media to publicize legitimate stories and advance particular agendas. The essays in Cultural Sutures delineate this deeply collaborative process by scrutinizing a broad range of interconnections between medicine and the media in print journalism, advertisements, fiction films, television shows, documentaries, and computer technology. In this volume, scholars of cinema studies, philosophy, English, sociology, health-care education, women’s studies, bioethics, and other fields demonstrate how the world of medicine engages and permeates the media that surround us. Whether examining the press coverage of the Jack Kevorkian–euthanasia controversy; pondering questions about accessibility, accountability, and professionalism raised by such films as Awakenings, The Doctor, and Lorenzo’s Oil; analyzing the depiction of doctors, patients, and medicine on E.R. and Chicago Hope; or considering the ways in which digital technologies have redefined the medical body, these essays are consistently illuminating and provocative. Contributors. Arthur Caplan, Tod Chambers, Stephanie Clark-Brown, Marc R. Cohen, Kelly A. Cole, Lucy Fischer, Lester D. Friedman, Joy V. Fuqua, Sander L. Gilman, Norbert Goldfield, Joel Howell, Therese Jones, Timothy Lenoir, Gregory Makoul, Marilyn Chandler McEntyre, Faith McLellan, Jonathan M. Metzl, Christie Milliken, Martin F. Norden, Kirsten Ostherr, Limor Peer, Audrey Shafer, Joseph Turow, Greg VandeKieft, Otto F. Wahl

Community impact of group homes for mentally ill adults

The phenomenon of resistance to the establishment of group homes for mentally ill adults is well-documented. The extent to which such homes, once established, do or do not create problems for communities is less clear. The current study examined the impressions of residents of a group home neighborhood one year or more after the establishment of the home. Forty-one residents of group home neighborhoods and thirty-nine residents of control (non-home) neighborhoods responded to a survey about their impressions of how a group home had affected or (for controls) would affect their neighborhoods. More than one fourth of the group home neighbors did not even know that they were living near a home. Those who did know tended to report a negligible impact of the group homes on things such as property values, neighborhood crime, resident safety, and distressing incidents in the community. Most of these residents also indicated that they were satisfied with the group home in their neighborhoods. The actual experience of group home neighbors was far more favorable than what residents of the control neighborhood anticipated, despite lack of differences in demographic characteristics or overall attitudes toward community care of mentally ill persons. Results support the view that the feared consequences of group home establishment in residential neighborhoods do not occur and that such homes may gain reasonable acceptance after they are established.

Public vs. professional conceptions of schizophrenia.

The beliefs of several lay groups about the symptoms, causes, and treatments of schizophrenia were examined and compared with those of mental health professionals. Lay groups were similar to one another in viewing schizophrenia as being characterized by emotional symptoms, psychosocial causes, and psychosocial treatments. Professionals, on the other hand, tended to stress cognitive symptoms, biological/hereditary origins, and pharmacological treatment. It is suggested that there exist common misconceptions about schizophrenia that need to be better addressed by mental health educators.