Although journalistic professional guidelines such as those presented in Chapter 1 detail the process journalists should undertake in gathering information for stories discussing mental health, as well as specific language to both use and avoid, there are additional considerations to acknowledge. This researcher considers it is imperative to include articles with various sources and decrease the dominance given to any singular, on-the-record source. It may be beneficial to amend professional journalism suggestions to better emphasize the importance of firsthand
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knowledge, while removing mental health professionals, medical authorities, and law
enforcement officials as on-the-record sources when those individuals may not adequately know an individual’s medical diagnosis or associated behaviors and outcomes. Relying on such
authoritative sources, as opposed to the individual with a mental health label or family members of said individual, may further bolster the dominant perspectives found within this study and perpetuate the ideological beliefs of the identified powerholders.
Much of the focus of the journalistic guidelines as it relates to mental health and mental illness is tied to language. While this is an important element to offer guidelines on, little is discussed regarding the power given to those whose perspectives are used predominantly throughout articles, and what said power does to all parties described. Furthering journalists’
education regarding ideologies and dominant perspectives may help in increasing the range, expertise, and authenticity of individuals interviewed and quoted within an article. Potential journalism and communication courses could be held in higher education classes, seminars, conferences, or other extended education platforms.
The intersectionality of this study allows for the awareness of disability studies insight to be shared with journalists and vice versa. Building relationships between journalists and other communications professionals with individuals with disabilities and other professionals from the disability studies field may encourage a greater understanding for both groups. All individuals can learn from one another and having the opportunity for one field to educated another can only further one’s understanding about an issue. As previous research has shown, individuals with mental health labels are often negatively stereotyped (e.g., Sieff, 2003). By following newer guidelines and recommendations, newspaper journalists can add greater context to stories to
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better inform audience members thereby humanizing stories while decreasing language that may be irrelevant to an article’s newsworthiness.
5.4 Conclusion
More than one billion people around the world live with a disability, with almost 50 million adults in the U.S. living with mental illness (National Institute of Mental Health, 2016).
The representations and lexical choices used by individuals when describing those with mental health labels have a powerful effect on the perceptions audience members have regarding said individuals (Snow, n.d.), and newspapers assist in spreading ideas and concepts in a manner that may shape public opinion about such topics. The purpose of this case study was to explore and describe the representations of mental health in online newspaper articles published by three national publications – The Washington Post, The New York Times, and USA Today. Semiotic analysis was conducted via CDA and five major themes emerged: (1) mental health labels as a medicalized, biological concern; (2) evocation of emotional responses in representations of mental health labels; (3) perpetuation of ideological beliefs; (4) low-context descriptions of mental health and mental illness; and (5) predominance of sources with hidden authoritative power. Media gatekeepers have the ability to create social narratives about specific topics, and the findings of this study suggest that representations and terminology used by media outlets may reinforce a dominant ideology about people with mental health labels.
5.4.1 Limitations
Content analysis research is a method in which to understand what is presented, meaning the process by which gatekeepers produce news articles (in this study) cannot and is not explored.
Further research should examine the production of discourse in the process of gathering,
constructing, and disseminating news content. The analysis for this study focused on the textual
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language presented via the publications’ websites – future research could use multimodal analysis to investigate photographs, placement, and design features attributed to news stories covering individuals with mental health labels. CDA as a methodological approach presents limits as well as opportunities, and other methods, such as ethnography, might provide complementary insights. In addition, this case study was specific to the three publications analyzed with articles published within a specific time frame, presenting findings tied to the specific parameters set. Newspapers are continually evolving and this study presents only a snapshot in time of three national newspapers.
5.4.2 Future Research
With regards to cultivation analysis in media, future research would need to survey and interview audience members to understand any ideologies that may be present in their beliefs and
assumptions about individuals with mental health labels. As discussed earlier, there are varying degrees of support for cultivation theory, and future studies may help in deciphering its effect on heavy, medium, and light news readers.
More research can be conducted on the evidence of speculation of mental health labels in newspapers. Flynn (2015) stated that labelling individuals with general and/or specific
psychiatric terms increases stigma and stress, while increasing the perception of mental illness as the only credible explanation for an act, but little additional research has been conducted on the subject. A few articles described in this study expressed this notion, but further research should be explored to understand the frequency and if there are any significant implications to this discourse. Finally, it would be beneficial to explore other newspapers and different media outlets to understand if findings from this study are evident. Subsequent studies could focus on local
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and/or regional newspapers, or different mainstream, national newspaper from those used within this study.