Stigma: the representation of mental health in UK newspaper Twitter feeds

Bowen, Matt; Lovell, Andy

doi:10.1080/09638237.2019.1608937

Cited by 21 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…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).…”

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 78%

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

Hildersley

Potts

Anderson

et al. 2020

Epidemiol Psychiatr Sci

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Aims Time to Change, an anti-stigma programme in England, has worked to reduce stigma relating to mental illness in many facets of life. Newspaper reports are an important factor in shaping public attitudes towards mental illnesses, as well as working as a barometer reflecting public opinion. This study aims to assess the way that coverage of mental health topics and different mental illnesses has changed since 2008. Method Articles covering mental health in 18 different newspapers were retrieved using keyword searches on two randomly chosen days of each month in 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2013, 2014, 2016 and 2019. A content analysis approach using a structured coding framework was used to extract information from the articles. Logistic regression models were used to estimate the change in odds of each hypothesised stigmatising or anti-stigmatising element occurring in 2019 compared to 2008 and 2016 with a Wald test to assess the overall significance of year as a predictor in the model. Further logistic regression models were used to assess the association between the diagnosis that an article was about and the odds that it was stigmatising, and whether this relationship is moderated by year of publication. Results A total of 6731 articles were analysed, and there was a significant increase in anti-stigmatising articles in 2019 compared to 2008 (OR 3.16 (2.60–3.84), p < 0.001) and 2016 (OR 1.40 (1.16–1.69), p < 0.001). Of the 5142 articles that specified a diagnosis, articles about schizophrenia were 6.37 times more likely to be stigmatising than articles about other diagnoses (OR 6.37 (3.05–13.29) p < 0.001), and there was evidence that the strength of this relationship significantly interacted with the year an article was published (p = 0.010). Articles about depression were significantly less likely to be stigmatising (OR 0.59 (0.69–0.85) p = 0.018) than those about other diagnoses, while there was no difference in coverage of eating disorders v. other diagnoses (OR 1.37 (0.67–2.80) p = 0.386); neither of these relationships showed an interaction with the year of publication. Conclusion Anti-stigma programmes should continue to work with newspapers to improve coverage of mental illness. However, interventions should consider providing specific guidance and promote awareness of rarer mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia, and evaluation should examine whether reductions in stigma extend to people with all mental illness diagnoses.

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Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 78%

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

Hildersley

Potts

Anderson

et al. 2020

Epidemiol Psychiatr Sci

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“…Stigma, a social phenomenon involving negative attitudes toward people with certain characteristics or conditions, markedly affects people with mental disorders [ 33 ]. Given the potential role that social media plays in the perpetuation of misinformation, stereotypes, and hateful speech, psychiatric research in this area has particularly focused on stigma [ 34 ]; examples include studies on psychosis and schizophrenia [ 24 , 35 , 36 ], bipolar disorder [ 37 ], and the depiction of mental disorders by mass media [ 38 ]. The infrequency of stigmatizing Twitter content related to hikikomori and the relative lack of engagement with such content are hopeful findings.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Examining Tweet Content and Engagement of Users With Tweets About Hikikomori in Japanese: Mixed Methods Study of Social Withdrawal

Pereira-Sánchez¹,

Álvarez-Mon²,

Horinouchi³

et al. 2022

J Med Internet Res

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Background Hikikomori is a form of severe social withdrawal that is particularly prevalent in Japan. Social media posts offer insight into public perceptions of mental health conditions and may also inform strategies to identify, engage, and support hard-to-reach patient populations such as individuals affected by hikikomori. Objective In this study, we seek to identify the types of content on Twitter related to hikikomori in the Japanese language and to assess Twitter users’ engagement with that content. Methods We conducted a mixed methods analysis of a random sample of 4940 Japanese tweets from February to August 2018 using a hashtag (#hikikomori). Qualitative content analysis included examination of the text of each tweet, development of a codebook, and categorization of tweets into relevant codes. For quantitative analysis (n=4859 tweets), we used bivariate and multivariate logistic regression models, adjusted for multiple comparisons, and estimated the predicted probabilities of tweets receiving engagement (likes or retweets). Results Our content analysis identified 9 codes relevant to tweets about hikikomori: personal anecdotes, social support, marketing, advice, stigma, educational opportunities, refuge (ibasho), employment opportunities, and medicine and science. Tweets about personal anecdotes were the most common (present in 2747/4859, 56.53% of the tweets), followed by social support (902/4859, 18.56%) and marketing (624/4859, 12.84%). In the adjusted models, tweets coded as stigma had a lower predicted probability of likes (−33 percentage points, 95% CI −42 to −23 percentage points; P<.001) and retweets (−11 percentage points, 95% CI −18 to −4 percentage points; P<.001), personal anecdotes had a lower predicted probability of retweets (−8 percentage points, 95% CI −14 to −3 percentage points; P=.002), marketing had a lower predicted probability of likes (−13 percentage points, 95% CI −21 to −6 percentage points; P<.001), and social support had a higher predicted probability of retweets (+15 percentage points, 95% CI 6-24 percentage points; P=.001), compared with all tweets without each of these codes. Conclusions Japanese tweets about hikikomori reflect a unique array of topics, many of which have not been identified in prior research and vary in their likelihood of receiving engagement. Tweets often contain personal stories of hikikomori, suggesting the potential to identify individuals with hikikomori through Twitter.

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“…Among mental health professionals and beyond, through the years there have been two competing discourses on mental illness (Bates et al, 2020;Bowen & Lovell, 2021;Foucault & Lagrange, 2006;Goffman, 1968;Monnapula-Mazabane & Petersen, 2021;Riles et al, 2021;Tuliao, 2021;Vlasova, 2014). One of them pathologizes people who have mental health problems, and the other, on the contrary, represents a humanitarian turn towards anti-discrimination of this vulnerable social group.…”

Section: Theoretical and Methodological Principles For Measuring Judi...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Measuring judiciarization of people with mental illnesses

Mikhaylova

Naumova

2022

Crime Law Soc Change

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The judiciarization of the psychiatric subject is a two-sided process. It could antidiscriminate people with mental illnesses but, at the same time, it could potentially provoke pathologization of mental illnesses. Current methodologies proposed to measure this important and complicated process for people with mental illnesses do not allow analysis on multiple levels (the macro, meso, and micro). In this article, to fill this gap we propose a methodological strategy that helps to investigate judiciarization of people with mental illnesses on multiple levels at once. This approach is based on critical discourse analysis of legal documents and court decisions that feature people with the poor mental health. Namely, we suggest how to measure the level or degree of judiciarization, its geographical evenness, actors in the legal process, its dimensions (the law branches of its occurrence), and linguistic content. We applied this methodology in examining 1,243 legal documents and 327,311 court decisions that were issued by agents of the Russian law system. The research findings show that judiciarization levels in Russia have been rising over the years, moving away from stigmatizing those with mental illnesses and towards anti-discrimination. Our paper could be of interest to socio-legal researchers and social policy practitioners. Keywords judiciarization • critical discourse analysis • legal discourse on mental health • Russia* Oxana Mikhaylova

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Stigma: the representation of mental health in UK newspaper Twitter feeds

Cited by 21 publications

References 33 publications

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

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

Examining Tweet Content and Engagement of Users With Tweets About Hikikomori in Japanese: Mixed Methods Study of Social Withdrawal

Measuring judiciarization of people with mental illnesses

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