Commentary on: Shapiro S, Rotter M. Graphic depictions: portrayals of mental illness in video games. J Forensic Sci 2016;61(6):1592–5.

Abstract

Commentary on: Shapiro S, Rotter M. Graphic depictions: portrayals of mental illness in video games. J Forensic Sci 2016;61 (6):1592-5. Sir,This commentary is in response to the study of Shapiro and Rotter (2016): "Graphic Depictions: Portrayals of Mental Illness in Video Games." (1) The article elicits a particularly painful reminder about the misrepresentation of mental illness in various sociocultural establishments, such as writings, popular media, and tools of entertainment such as video games. My group's research is closely related to the context of the authors' analysis of the portrayal of mental illness in the age of technology.Recently, we conducted a study of the people who video-blogged about experiencing suicidal ideations. The goal was to understand how these individuals represent their mental illness, and how the audience responds to this imagery. Similar to methods described in the article of Shapiro and Rotter, a student of mine and I selectively searched the Web, identifying over 100 video blogs featuring suicidal struggle. All bloggers (n = 103) were invited to participate in the study. Of those, 24 individuals agreed to take part in semistructured interviews, conducted in English through a secure video chat.After transcribing verbatim all interviews, we conducted a qualitative content analysis of each blog profile, noting trends of perceiving psychiatric struggle on the Internet. We made a few general observations. First, people with suicidal thoughts post online about their mental illness to attract attention and receive spiritual support. Second, over 72% of audience comments of each blog post encouraged act of suicide. Third, about 21% showed some remorse through their comments-mixed neutral and positive responses. Fourth, only 6% of comments were supportive and clearly discouraged suicide.In the text analysis of the history of site activity, not a single person triggered an emergency note to police to alarm about events of suicidal plans occurring online. In fact, more than two-thirds of the commenters RSVP'd to watch live-streamed suicidal attempt of each of our participants. These data paint a disturbing picture of callous Internet users who follow suicidal bloggers for entertainment. These observations show disregard for mental illness in online space and that people who search for support online are more likely to be encouraged into self-destructive behaviors.

Framing Mental Health Within Digital Games: An Exploratory Case Study of Hellblade

“…Professional athletes may approach the act of playing a game under the premise of training rather than simply leisure enjoyment. This additional frame of professional sport adds new meaning to the act of playing, a process known as upkeying [26,45]. In contrast, the act of downkeying involves the removal of additional frames toward a traditional understanding of a given situation.…”

“…The inclusion of mental health disorders within digital games has often been viewed as troublesome. This is most notable in relation to horror-themed games, which often rely on heavily stigmatized versions of the “mentally ill” as prone to violence and mental health hospitals as dark, haunted asylums [11,26]. Sendler [27] argues that mental illness has increasingly been presented by the media because of society’s growing desensitization and fascination toward these disorders.…”

“…Games such as Outlast (Red Barrels), Manhunt (Rockstar Games), and The Evil Within (Bethesda Softworks) include harmful, stereotypical depictions of these characters, including murderous patients or abusive caretakers [16,29]. These troublesome portrayals of individuals experiencing forms of mental illness promote fear and stigma toward people dealing with these issues while perhaps also promoting forms of self-stigmatization, which may inhibit people dealing with mental health concerns from attempting to seek help and support [26].…”

Gaming With Stigma: Analysis of Messages About Mental Illnesses in Video Games

“…Studies have also begun to explore players’ experience of gameplay and video game messages about violence, sexism, and racism [11-14]. However, little attention has been devoted to messages about the experience of mental illness in commercial video games [15-17], the impact they may have on attitudes toward and understandings of mental illness, and how they could perpetuate stereotypes and/or stigma about mental illness. Shapiro and Rotter [16] reviewed 96 popular commercial video game characters (highest-selling video games from 2011 to 2013) comparing them with mental illness stereotypes identified in movies [16,18].…”

“…Apart from a few published works that looked at mental illness messages in video games [15-17], most of our current knowledge about media portrayals about mental illness concern movies, television (TV), and cartoons. Since the 1990s, researchers have studied the impact of media (eg, TV, newspapers, and cartoons) portrayals of mental illness on the public [19-22] and most recently on children [23].…”