Stigma: a linguistic analysis of the UK red-top tabloids press’ representation of schizophrenia

Abstract

Aims: Media representations of mental health problems may influence readers’ understanding of, and attitude towards, people who have received psychiatric diagnoses. Negative beliefs and attitudes may then lead to discriminatory behaviour, which is understood as stigma. This study explored the language used in popular national newspapers when writing about schizophrenia and considered how this may have contributed to the processes of stigmatisation towards people with this diagnosis. Methods: Using corpus linguistic methods, a sample of newspaper articles over a 24-month period that mentioned the word ‘schizophrenia’ was compared with a similar sample of articles about diabetes. This enabled a theory-driven exploration of linguistic characteristics to explore stigmatising messages, while supported by statistical tests (log-likelihood) to compare the data sets and identify words with a high relative frequency. Results: Analysis of the ‘schizophrenia’ data set identified that overtly stigmatising language (e.g. ‘schizo’) was relatively infrequent, but that there was frequent use of linguistic signatures of violence. Articles frequently used graphic language referring to acts of violence, descriptions of violent acts, implements used in violence, identity labels and exemplars of well-known individuals who had committed violent acts. The word ‘schizophrenic’ was used with a high frequency ( n = 108) and most commonly to name individuals who had committed acts of violence. Discussion: The study suggests that while the press has largely avoided the use of words that press guidance has steered them away from (e.g. ‘schizo’ and ‘psycho’), they still use a range of graphic language to present people with a diagnosis of schizophrenia as frighteningly ‘other’ and as prone to violence. This repetition of negative stereotypical messages may well contribute to the processes of stigmatisation many people who experience psychosis have to contend with.

Improvement for most, but not all: changes in newspaper coverage of mental illness from 2008 to 2019 in England

“…The finding that schizophrenia is associated with more stigmatising newspaper coverage is in line with other studies (Clement and Foster, 2008; Bowen et al ., 2019; Ross et al ., 2019). This study shows that the proportion of stigmatising articles about schizophrenia has recently increased.…”

“…The disproportionate proportion of stigmatising coverage associated with schizophrenia could be for several reasons. Schizophrenia is frequently associated with violence and criminality when discussed in newspapers (Clement and Foster, 2008; Goulden et al ., 2011; Aoki et al ., 2016; Rodrigues-Silva et al ., 2017; Gwarjanski and Parrott, 2018; Bowen et al ., 2019), either in a metaphorical or literal sense. Newspapers focus on criminality and mission to report topics that are ‘newsworthy’ may create a selection bias towards only publishing stories about people with schizophrenia that have committed a criminal act.…”

“…Previous analyses of UK newspaper coverage during the Time to Change programme also focussed on mental illness as a single construct (Thornicroft et al ., 2013; Rhydderch et al ., 2016; Anderson et al ., 2018). However exploratory analysis (2018) indicated that a higher proportion of stories about schizophrenia were stigmatising than those about other diagnoses, in line with other studies of social media (Bowen and Lovell, 2019; Li et al ., 2020) and newspapers (Goulden et al ., 2011; Gwarjanski and Parrott, 2018; Bowen et al ., 2019; Ross et al ., 2019).…”

“Sex isn’t everything”: views of people with experience of psychosis on intimate relationships and implications for mental health services

“…Themes of prejudice, discrimination, and rejection due to experience/diagnosis of psychosis were prominent and cross-cutting in our findings. Indeed, reductionist terms such as ‘schizophrenic’ are still common and appear alongside graphic and emotive descriptions of violence in the media, contributing to persistent beliefs within the general population that people who experience psychosis are inherently dangerous [ 26 ]. A previous study found people with a diagnosis of schizophrenia felt a need to conceal their diagnosis from friends and family [ 27 ].…”

Negative interpretations of ambiguous ‘psychosis‐like’ and ‘anxiety‐like’ experiences in recovery from psychosis or anxiety

“…Reavley, Morgan, and Jorm (2017) found disclosure of a diagnosis of psychosis significantly predicted avoidance by others and discrimination. The label ‘schizophrenia’ is associated with stigma and frequently linked to violence in the UK mainstream media (Bowen, Kinderman, & Cooke, 2019). Psychosis is associated with many negative effects including a 2–3 times higher mortality risk (Brown, Kim, Mitchell, & Inskip, 2010), and more negative stereotypes and lower expectations of recovery comparative to depression or anxiety (Wood, Birtel, Alsawy, Pyle, & Morrison, 2014).…”