Mass Media and Mental Disability

Project supported by IPF Program 2004

Project proposal

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Content

Rationale
Aim
Objectives and procedures
Expected results
References

Rationale

In Latvia and other Central-Eastern European countries, there is an urgent need to raise awareness in society of the rights of mentally disabled in order to facilitate policy activities aimed towards integration of people with mental disabilities into society. The trend towards the isolation of mentally disabled members of society still strongly dominates in this region. Mental health care practises in Latvia severely violate the human rights of mentally disabled despite the fact that the Law of Medical Treatment (1997) declares that persons with mental disabilities in Latvia have all civic, political, economic and social rights. Around 36% of mentally disabled in Latvia are socially isolated in specialised hospitals and social care homes that usually are established far away from community. Moreover, because of the shortage in mental health care funding, people in mental health care hospitals and social care houses often receive inappropriate care and live in substandard conditions (Leimana, 2000). Others spent the majority of their time at their homes because of the lack of community-based services. As a result, mentally disabled people in Latvia who constitute around 2.6% of the whole population are excluded from society; they represent an ‘invisible population’- a population whose rights are not widely recognised and respected. Moreover, even if some limited actions towards inclusion of people with mental disabilities into society (mainly supported by the Mental Disability Advocacy Program) do exist, general public in Latvia is rather uninformed about them.

Mass media are widely recognised as one of the most powerful tools to increase the ‘visibility’ of people with mental disabilities, to shape public attitudes towards them and consequently to influence mental health policy (e.g.Coverdale, et al 2000, MIND 1997). However, in Western European countries and the USA the awareness of the significance of mass media in mental health care policy came only after mass media contributed significantly to the shift back from community based care to more controlling policies in 1990s (Holloway 1996, Hannigan, Cutcliffe 2002, Hallam 2002). As from this aspect, Latvia and other Central-Eastern European countries still have an opportunity to use mass media to strengthen public awareness of rights of people with mental disabilities and prepare general public for community based mental health care policies in advance to policy activities. Such a proactive approach would allow reducing the probability of occurrence of a situation where mass media feed negative attitudes and consequently supports or even facilitates more controlling mental health policies.

However, instead of simple quantitative saturation of mass media with information on mental disability issues, carefully targeted, prepared, and tested actions are needed for two main reasons. Firstly, actions should be carefully targeted in order to use effectively the extremely limited resources of interest groups. Secondly, the strategy and content of representation of mental disability issues should be tested before being implemented in order to achieve the expected positive outcomes. Even more important, activities should be tested in order to avoid negative unintended consequences. For example, Hallam (2002) demonstrates how media coverage of issues of schizophrenia patients promoted with good intentions by advocates of rights of these patients in UK raised unexpected reactions of public and consequently led to the opposite result- more controlling mental health care policy.

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The aim of this project is to explore how representations of mental health/illness issues in mass media can be used to increase awareness of society members in Latvia of the rights of people with mental disabilities and need to integrate them into society and to give policy recommendations for relevant intuitions and interest groups.

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Objectives and Procedures

1. Development of the research framework

Objective: To explore the current situation in research, policy, and mass media related to the topic and to identify persons and institutions for participatory research in order to develop a theoretical and collaborative framework for the research

Method: Literature review, document analysis and semi-structured interviews

2. Mass media representation of people with mental disabilities.
Objective: to specify the objectives of mass communication, the type of media and audience that should be targeted in order to increase the awareness of society of the rights of people with mental disability and the need to integrate them fully into society.
a)Mass media representation of people with mental disability Method: Content analysis
Objectives: To identify the dominant messages about people with mental disabilities presented in mass media in Latvia; to compare the representations of people with mental disabilities in different media.
Sample: A representative sample of the national and local media output for one randomly selected month.
b)Audience perception study (modified from Philo 1993, Philo et al 1996).
Objective: To explore how media accounts of people with mental disabilities are interpreted by community members in Latvia and how this interpretation contributes to their beliefs, attitudes and behaviour towards people with mental disabilities and their rights.
Method: Focus group that involves: i) media representations reproduction studies in sub-groups; ii) focus group discussions.
Sample: Separate focus groups will be organised for ‘general public’ and ‘control group’- people who have had direct experiences with mentally disabled persons (relative, professionals). Stratifying and theoretical saturation strategies will be employed for sampling.
2.Participatory research.
Objective: to develop strategies for the use of mass media communication for development of public awareness of rights of people with mental disability and the need to facilitate their integration into society.
Participants: Persons and institutions involved and interested in advocacy of rights of people with mental disabilities and in their integration into society.
Method: Participants will be introduced with a preliminary report. Several brainstorming sessions will be used in order to develop the strategies for mass media communication.
3.Testing mass communication strategies
Objective: to test developed strategies in order to evaluate their effectiveness and identify possible unintended consequences.
Method: Focus group
Sample: sample for focus groups will reflect the target groups identified in research on mass media representation.
4.Final report, recommendations and guidelines
In this stage I will summarise my research results and formulate policy recommendations and will prepare:

Guidelines and training seminars for proactive and reactive activities regarding mass media representations of people with mental disabilities for institutions involved in Mental disability advocacy (NGOs, professional organizations of mental health care professionals).
A resource guide for the mass media coverage of mental disability issues for professional organisations of mass media representatives and journalism students;
Publications (by myself and journalists) for general public on representations of mental disability in the mass media.

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Expected results:

In short term, policy documents and guidelines listened above will empower purposeful and effective mental disability advocacy activities of NGOs and mental health care professionals related to the mass media in Latvia and later in the region as a whole. Firstly, the guidelines for NGOs and mental health care professionals will provide them with practical and feasible measures and tools that can be used to raise public awareness of rights of people with mental disabilities. Thus the general public can be prepared for the activities of integration of people with mental disabilities into society. In long term, the public awareness would create public pressure on policy-making institutions to introduce policies orientated to social inclusion. Secondly, the project will initiate the cooperation between mass media representatives and mental disability advocacy activists in Latvia. A resource guide for mass media representatives and students will increase awareness of mass media professionals of mental disabilities issues and consequently facilitate more correct representation of these issues in the mass media. Moreover, the guidelines and training seminars for mental disability advocacy activists and mass media representatives can be used also in other countries in the region. In addition, the project will contribute to the development of rather underdeveloped mass media research in Latvia.
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References

Leimana, I.(2000). Needs Assessment for the Mental Disability Advocacy Program. Latvian Centre for Human Rights and Ethnic Studies, Soros Foundation-Latvia.

Coverdale, J., Nairn, R., Claasen, D. (2002). Depictions of Mental Illness in Print Media: a Prospective National Sample. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 36(5), 697-701

MIND (1997). Tall Stories from the Back Yard. London: National Association for Mental Health

Holloway, F. (1996). Community Psychiatric Care: from Libertarianism to Coercion: Moral Panic and Mental Health Policy in Britain. Health Care Analysis, 4, 235-243

Hannigan, B., Cutcliffe, J. (2002). Challenging Contemporary Mental Health Policy: Time to Assure the Coercion? Journal of Advanced Nursing, 37(5), 477-585

Hallam, A.(2002). Media Influences on Mental Health Policy: Long Term Effects of the Clunis and Silcock Cases. International Review of Psychiatry, 14(1), 26-36

Philo, G..(1993).Mass Media Representations of Mental Health/Illness: Audience Reception Study Glasgow: Glasgow University Media Group

Philo, G. , Secker, J., Platt, S., Henderson, L., McLaughlin, G., Burnside, J. (1996).Media Images of Mental Distress. In Heller, T., Reynolds, J., Gomm, R., Muston, R., Pattison, S. (eds). Mental Health Matters. A Reader. London: Macmillan Press and Open University.

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Daiga Kamerāde

Contact

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Last Updated
28 July 2004