Media and Mental Health Stigma

Here is another great post from our student contributor, Samantha Ege: Think about all the different kinds of media you consume a day; this includes the Internet, television, music, movies, social media, magazines, newspapers, etc. When I think about it, I probably consume way too much media, I mean being a college student Netflix tends to always be in the background. Even though it might just be background noise, how much does the media influence us exactly? How much does mass media shape society? The media industry has a very wide range of influence, especially when you see it through psychology’s eyes. I’ve seen a lot of movies and television shows in my day, a lot that take some sort of stance on mental health. Some are good representations of the reality of suffering from a mental illness, others, not so much. Many people have seen crime shows on TV like NCIS and Law & Order, great shows, but far too often the murders, thieves, and other criminals suffer from some sort of mental illness. There is no doubt some criminals do suffer from mental illnesses, but this disproportionate representation of criminals who suffer from mental illnesses contributes to stigma against those who suffer from mental illness and are not criminals. There have been countless studies that show that the feeling of dangerousness is a major contributor to mental health stigma, for example Silke, C., Swords, L., &; Heary, C. (2016).

Furthermore, I’m sure most people in the United States have seen a preview for an upcoming movie. This year I saw the preview for “Split” and dramatic movie that focuses on an unstable man with multiple personality disorder, however, the more psychologists I speak to about it, the more I hear that there is insufficient evidence that such disorder exists, not to mention how unrealistic that individual case is. This kind of representation of mental illness distorts society’s view of those who suffer from mental illnesses. According to cultivation theory, the more media one consumes, the more he/she believes that media mirrors reality. This theory explains why people associate people who suffer from mental illness with negative attributes like dangerousness, instability, and impulsivity. Even though these things can happen, they do not occur as often as the media makes it seem. The more one watches television shows and movies that misrepresent those who suffer from mental illness, the more they will internalize that stigma and act on it in the real world.

The media industry should make it a priority to represent people who happen to suffer from mental illness as normal, regular people who happen to struggle with something, because that is more accurate than portraying them as serial killers, bad-guys, and unstable “psychos”. But this is a cycle, we must be more diligent in shaping our perception of those who suffer from mental illness to a more accurate perception; we must be aware of how much influence the media industry has on us everyday.