Media Representation Of Mental Illnesses Essay

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When the word “words like mental illness”, the first word that comes up is craziness. The media has always created a stigma around mental illnesses, creating negative stereotypes, when in reality very few people fit the stereotype. These stereotypes have always affected people, and not just the ones with mental illness. This is why having a better representation of mental illness in the media will create awareness and understanding. In the media, whenever mental illness comes up, the person that has it usually causes stigma around that disorder and that community in general. The media portrayal often models negative reactions to people with mental disorders and often “portrays mental illness as being untreatable or unrecoverable”(Saleh). Misinformation …show more content…

They portray misinformation about the symptoms, causes, and treatment of schizophrenia. There are many ways to create positive representations in the media, instead of spreading misleading stereotypes and stigma around mental illness. Secondly, big changes begin with small ones first; they are the ones that create large-scale impacts (Gladwell). In the context of creating a positive representation in the media for people with mental illnesses, there are many ways to get rid of the stigma. For example, shifting to more person-centered language; instead of using their mental illness as their main characteristic, shifting to more person-centered languages. For example, instead of saying addict, they can say a person living with addiction (Media). This will gradually shift people from seeing that a character's main personality trait is their mental illness to someone who just lives with the mental illness. In addition, the use of derogatory language such as crazy, insane, and others while referring to people with mental illness also creates a stigma around them, so the stop of derogatory terms will create change, even though it is a small

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