The Silence of Stigma
Media Influence Around Mental Health
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"Do media portrayals of mental illness add to our understanding of mental illness or do they simply perpetuate stereotypes?"
Social Media and News
When you look on CNN or any other news channels, have you counted how many stories feature a person facing a mental health illness?
Stories that feature violent acts by a person with a mental health condition are typically featured as headline news while there are fewer articles that feature stories of recovery or positive news concerning individuals.
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Rather than treating a person with a mental illness as a perpetrator, reflect on how that person is more likely to be a victim to mental illness.
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Portrayal of Mental Illness in Movies and TV Shows.
TV, movies, games, and other forms of entertainment often feature negative images and stereotypes about mental health conditions, and these portrayals have strongly lead to the development of fears and misunderstanding.
These types of entertainment are known to overexaggerate and provide inaccurate descriptions of a mental health diagnosis. Instead of depicting the reality of having a mental illness, it is labelled as causing havoc and being dangerous. In general, all the stereotypes of mental health add onto the mental health stigma.
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These movies that show mental illness can have unintentional effects on those who do experience mental health difficulties. We need cinema to reshape the way, our society views individuals who struggle with mental health problems.
Social Media as a Platform
Because of how mental health illness are depicted in the news, movies, and other types of media, individuals are less likely to seek out help or treatment.
Through social media platforms such as Instagram and Twitter, mental health has gotten more attention. Social media has gotten better addressing the mental health situation and is slowly starting to accept individuals having mental health diagnoses.
So, let's continue using social media to spread awareness on mental health, and decrease the stigma surrounding it.
- Use this social media apps to talk about your own experience with mental health.
- Share mental health resources, so more become aware of the support systems they can rely on.
- Share tweets and posts that mention more positive recovery process about mental health than the negative.
- Immediately stand up when you see stigmatizing content on social media.