Biomedical subjects

A Panapa

Publications and source records attributed to A Panapa.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2000

How mental illness is portrayed in children's television. A prospective study.

BACKGROUND: There are no published studies concerning the depiction of mental illness in children's television programmes. AIMS: To determine whether mental illness was depicted in children's television. METHOD: Sample of one complete week of children's television (57 hours, 50 minutes; 128 series episodes: 69 cartoon animations, 12 non-cartoon animations, 47 real life) provided for children under the age of 10 years. Disclosure analysis of portrayals of mental illness through repeated viewings identified patterns in the use of linguistic, semiotic and rhetorical resources. RESULTS: Of the 128 episodes, 59 (46%) contained one or more references to mental illness, predominantly in cartoons (n = 47, 80%) compared with other episode types (chi 2 = 17.1, d.f. = 2, P < 0.05). Commonly occurring terms such as 'crazy' (n = 28), 'mad' (n = 19) and 'losing your mind' (n = 13) were employed to denote loss of control. The six consistently mentally ill characters were almost entirely devoid of admirable attributes. CONCLUSION: Young viewers are being socialized into stigmatizing conceptions of mental illness.

Attitude to Health↗

PubMed1999

Constructing mental illness as dangerous: a pilot study.

OBJECTIVE: There is a dearth of studies examining how dangerousness is constructed in media depictions of mentally ill individuals who are frequently portrayed as acting violently. The aim of the present study was to identify the contribution of diverse technical, semiotic and discursive resources utilised in portraying a character with a mental illness in a prime-time drama as dangerous. METHOD: Discourse analytic techniques, involving systematic, repeated, critical viewings, were applied to a single program drawn from a sample of prime-time television drama episodes touching on mental illness. RESULTS: Nine devices (appearance, music and sound effects, lighting, language, intercutting, jump-cutting, point of view shots, horror conventions and intertextuality) were identified as contributing to the signified dangerousness of person receiving care in the community for a mental illness. CONCLUSIONS: These techniques combine in signifying mental illness and a person suffering from it as dangerous. The findings suggest that mental health professionals working to reduce the stigma of mental illness need to have a reasonably sophisticated understanding of the practices and priorities of television production if they are to collaborate effectively with producers to create dramas that convey more human and sympathetic understandings of mental illness or to combat the negative effects of such portrayals.

Dangerous Behavior↗

PubMed1999

Mental illness depictions in prime-time drama: identifying the discursive resources.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to determine how the mentally ill are depicted in prime-time television dramas. METHOD: Fourteen television dramas that included at least one character with a mental illness, shown in prime-time during a 1-year period, were systematically viewed and analysed. RESULTS: Fifteen of the 20 mentally ill characters were depicted as physically violent toward self or others. Characters were also depicted negatively as simple or lacking in comprehension and appearing lost, unpredictable, unproductive, asocial, vulnerable, dangerous to self or others because of incompetent behaviours, untrustworthy, and social outcasts, and positively as caring or empathic. CONCLUSIONS: These data are consistent with an overwhelming negativity of depictions of the mentally ill found in other forms of media and settings, and contribute to the stigmatisation of this population.

Humans↗