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Mental illness in British newspapers (or My Girlfriend is a Rover Metro)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Richard C. Barnes  and
Stephen Earnshaw
Richard C. Barnes
Affiliation:
Rathbone Hospital, Mill Lane, Liverpool L13 4AW
Stephen Earnshaw
Affiliation:
Winwick Hospital, Warrington WA2 8RR
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The main source of topical information in most parts of the world is through the mass media – principally newspapers and television. Television news and current affairs have a duty to remain impartial, as they provide a service for the whole population. Newspapers, on the other hand, have a greater journalistic and editorial freedom as they target subgroups. British newspapers are currently being scrutinised as to how they report both factual and speculative information of a general kind. At the same time there seems to be an increase in their interest in psychological matters. However, work on newspaper reporting of psychiatric disorders (Day & Page, 1986; Matas et al, 1986) has shown that the mentally ill are usually portrayed in a rather negative light with few positive images.

Type
Psychiatry and the media
Information
Psychiatric Bulletin , Volume 17 , Issue 11 , November 1993 , pp. 673 - 674
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists 1993

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