https://psychcentral.com/lib/medias-damaging-depictions-of-mental-illness/

“Media’s Damaging Depictions of Mental Illness”, an article from Psych Central, describes the ways in which the media portrays mental illness and emphasizes the risk of harm to both the public and those seeking treatment. According to the author, illness misrepresentation impacts decisions and can damage the wider society, hence the labeling of many depictions as “damaging”. The primary focus of the article is targeting supposed media-perpetrated myths and informing consumers on how to recognize the validity of a source’s claims. Each section has respective subsections which describe a key part of the topic discussed.

For starters, the article’s amount of referencing to professional studies effectively assures the reader that the outlined information is reputable. I do not doubt the legitimacy of the author’s claims, being that she does have a background in the psychology field. My first instinct upon reading this article is slight contempt for the mainstream media, leading -to my discovery that this is in fact the intended response as the author seeks to promote critical viewership of the media, blatantly stated in the last subsection “Become a Critical Consumer”. While the article notes the importance of considering “the content producer’s motives”, it should never be dismissed that those who call out others are often guilty of the same act to some degree. Here, this manifests as bias evident throughout much of the article, such as in the claim that “subtle [mental illness] stereotypes pervade the news regularly” or even the comments made on the “dwindling ratings and heavy criticism” of the early 2000s series Wonderland which signal to readers that the show was not only inaccurate but also too disliked to run. Citing studies where the results align with the article’s bias is obvious in many cases, namely while discussing the myths around mental illness, including “studies have found that dangerousness/crime is the most common theme of stories on mental illness”. I have, evident in the previous posts, trained my brain to recognize that even when an article cites reputable sources, it’s imperative to never confuse this with the absence of bias as the two are often actually linked. Moreover, in my opinion, the myths outlined express a rather black-and-white viewpoint (similar to post five), seemingly painting all the statements only in the light that supports the advocated cause.