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Framing Theory and the Stigmatization of Mental Illness

Haley Del Rio

Department of Communication and Mass Media, Angelo State University

COMM 2330: Public Relations

Dr. Marta N. Lukacovic

November 10, 2021

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In this paper I will discuss how social media stigmatizes mental illness and how this can

frame the mind of the audiences they reach. Public relations can confirm these frames or

dismantle them. Framing theory suggests that as a communicator we set the frames with our

words, imagery, and sound to influence our target audience. In this paper I will discuss my

findings from eight scholarly articles.

Literature Review: Public Relations & Stigmatizing Mental Illness

When it comes to public relations and mental health, public relations allow company’s or

an individual to reach a large audience and influence them in whichever way they like, to buy or

sell something, to vote for them or to even not support an induvial or company. Mental health

has been a major discussion on social media and news outlets. My findings in the articles I read

discussed that news outlets mostly stigmatize mental illness. In the articles I read they did many

different studies to show how social media may or may not influence audiences and offer their

own solutions to change this. In the articles they discuss how news outlets only run stories on

individuals with mental illness and show them as dangerous and violent (Gwarjanski & Parrott,

2018). News outlets don’t show recovery stories to show the flip side of mental health which

makes it seem untreatable and leads to audiences thinking that mental health can only be treated

by putting the individual away. We know today how prevalent social media it is today and how

is the main source of how people get their news. This is very important because it shows that

whichever news outlet or social media can influence the audience they reach. So, if the stories

and information the platform is sharing is stigmatizing or based on bad evidence that is getting

received by the audience therefore shapes how they see and react to mental illness. One of the

experiments done in the articles is they took several different news articles specifically talking

about schizophrenia and they had a control group read different articles, some were stigmatizing,
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some were challenging stigmas and the other was neutral. The results they found were that

people who read more stigmatized articles tended to believe the stigmas they read, while the ones

who read the stigma challenging articles, they were more likely to agree with that outlook

(Myrick & Pavelko, 2017). I have also noticed that with all the articles I felt that mental health is

something that we don’t really think about and as a society don’t really notice until something

bad happens, such as mass shootings or even when celebrities pass away due to mental illness. In

one article the authors did some research when celebrity Robin William’s death hit media

platforms and they noticed a surge in people calling the suicide hotlines and people searching for

mental health information on the internet (Carpentier & Parrott, 2017). This to me shows that

mental health tends to sit in the back burner of people’s minds until a tragedy happens which

brings it into the spotlight and people then must think about it. Then that leads the audience to

decide if mental illness comes down to an individual problem or a society problem as a whole

and how to improve it (Myrick, Major & Jankowski, 2014). In my opinion, the United States is

an individualistic culture. In my articles they mention that most of the time news outlets only

describe people with mental illness as violent and criminals. My article also mentions that when

news outlets primarily use stigmatization when they cover stories, they are also accompanied

with comments who reinforce the stigmatization the news outlets are putting out to audiences

(Gwarjanski & Parrott, 2018). Since people primarily get their information about mental illness

from news outlets and social media platforms the comments that reinforce these stigmas then

frame the minds of the audiences to believe that individuals with mental illness or schizophrenia

as the article uses as an example are those stigmas that are being put out. Another interesting

thing I found in my articles is that news outlets tend to not interview people who have mental

illness they do not expose their audiences to an individual who is actually living with the mentor
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owners rather they just paint a picture for them as to whatever the tragedy was, for example mass

shootings or a tragedy or a crime that was committed by an individual who has mental illness

and they also don't show the recovery of someone who has mental illness or showcase

educational information (Wilson et al., 2017)

Literature Review: Public Relations, Framing Theory, & Stigmatizing Mental

Illness

In my opinion public relations and framing theory go hand in hand, especially after

reading my scholarly articles. In all the experiments done in the articles I read they all base their

experiment around or like framing theory. Unfortunately, most of the time framing theory

specifically for news articles is tended to be used more negatively. There is some support that

framing theory can be used for more positive, for example in one of my articles they found that

when there was an article or social media post about mental health that was not stigmatizing

accompanying that posed were people who also we're not stigmatizing mental illness. In my

articles I can see a clear division when it comes to people on how they feel about mental illness.

Most of the time articles who support stigmatizing mental illness have an audience that supports

them in those beliefs so that reinforces that belief for that group of people while there are other

articles who do not stigmatize mental illness, they have their own audience which supports them

and not stigmatize mental illness and so in my opinion there is a constant divide (Gwarjanski &

Parrott, 2018). There is not really a middle ground I saw that when it came to mental illness you

were either on one side or the other. In public relations I feel it is hard to be in the middle ground

as much as people want to be, in the articles I have detected that there were more negative than

there was positive, but I propose that is due to the high demand of more tragic stories being

portrayed on news outlets specifically and even in social media. The more drama to the story the
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more interesting stories is the ones unfortunately that are the most tragic. In the article that I read

that discusses Robin Williams death, this article discusses how celebrities do not really talk

about their mental illness and they're not as open with it, so audiences see them as people with

ideal and perfect lives when such as Robin Williams death really show that even celebrities

battle with their own mental illness and they're just as human as the average person (Carpentier

& Parrott, 2017). So, seeing a spike in people calling the suicide prevention hotline and

researching about mental illness and about who Robin Williams was shows the impact and

influence that tragic stories can have on audiences and how they react to their own experiences

with mental illness. I also propose that public relations can change the attitude towards mental

illness which has been shown many times. In present day especially with COVID-19, I feel a lot

of influencers and news outlets are discussing mental illness more because we had to isolate

ourselves from each other and there was a noticeable surge in people wanting to go see therapists

and counselors to get help for their mental illness due to the COVID-19 virus and it prevents

people from being social and keeping them away from their loved ones. I detect people are being

more open and more willing to talk about mental illness. Mental illness is so stigmatized all the

time as I stated previously when we hear about mental illness it is most of the time attached to

some sort of tragedy and there is no positive shown to the individual or to the tragedy. We know

that mental illness can be treated but most of the time people think treatment looks like being

locked away in a hospital or being completely medicated to do that, to be in society. When

truthfully majority of people have or deal with some sort of mental illness no matter social status,

celebrity status, race ethnicity or gender. Framing theory in public relations really go hand in

hand and the commentator really does have the power to use that frame for positive or negative.

In these articles it has shown that whatever the audience is exposed to, whichever frame that is
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positive or negative, that is how they will see the topic. So specifically for my example

stigmatization of mental illness, in one of my articles that discuss is that individuals with mental

illness are more likely to be the victims of a crime versus being the perpetrator of that crime.

That same article also discusses how there is a surge in stories about mental illness and gun

violence after mass shooting tragedies happen which reinforces the stigmatization that mental

illness and violence go hand in hand.

Synthesis

Public relations and media platforms of all variety play a huge role in framing theory.

The scholarly articles that I read did not really offer a solution to this problem but instead they

made framing seem like an ongoing issue that we will constantly have to watch. The discussion

that I had in class showed me that a lot of people have noticed the same things I have when it

comes to media stigmatizing mental illness. In my presentation that I did for class I mentioned

that I felt that in the articles I read, you were either on one side or the other, there was really no

room for middle ground. I also discussed that articles who stigmatize mental illness had

audiences that supported those claims and at the same time articles that were stigma challenging

towards mental illness also had audiences that supported those claims, so it is difficult to try to

use framing theory in a positive light rather than in a negative light to make people with mental

illness not seem like criminals, violent, unstable, and unable to live in society. In the scholarly

articles one of the statistics that sticks out to me the most is that majority of people with mental

illness are victims of crimes rather than the person committing the crime, that sticks out to me a

lot because as we know in society people fear what they don't know or understand so it is very

easy to “demonize” people who do not seem “normal”. I suggest framing theory is something

that researchers should continue to look at and study, not just for mental illness but for a variety
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of hot button topics, in all the scholarly articles that I read the researchers at the end all said that

this should still be researched and investigated because framing theory is so prevalent, it makes

such huge impacts on its audiences. It is hard to normalize mental illness when there are these

continuous frames being put out by news outlets and social media platforms. I also see framing

theory as the continuous cycle, the continuous stigmatizing mental frames that get put out there

will constantly be going against the cycle of stigma challenging frames, so they end up

cancelling each other out and no progress is made in trying to make mental illness a more

prevalent topic and a more universal one.

Implications

As I stated previously framing is something we should continue to look at and look at the

effects that it has on its audiences when it comes to very prevalent topics such as mental illness.

Our society is set up to look at the drama, to see the tragedies and to be aware of these ongoing

issues. The problem with that is we do not see the other side, we do not see the good, we do not

see the recovery, we do not see the struggle the individual faces when dealing with mental

illness. I know with news outlets it's their job to report the news, the good news, the bad news,

and everything in between. It is news outlets jobs to inform the public, statistically tragic stories

have more views, gets more attention and so news outlets, news articles, social media platforms

are just doing what they were created to do, spread information. Earlier in my discussion I talked

about The United States being an individualistic culture, in my opinion I believe that is true. As a

society a lot of things come down to the individual, so for example with mental illness and mass

shootings, people tend to blame the parents, the teachers, violent video games and music, or

anything that they can pinpoint the issue on. I feel if we looked at things from a more

collectivistic approach, we would be forced to look in the mirror and see what is wrong with
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society. As I read in the articles it is a lot easier to lock the issue away from society rather than

trying to find a way to help the individual an even then we don't show the recovery process or the

positive outcome that can come from someone with mental illness receiving the proper help they

need. Going forward I feel it is important to be aware of these frames that are constantly being

put out there and being able to know the difference between positive and negative frames

because news outlets are very good at wording things in specific ways and going forward, I hope

this is something that is continued to be looked at by researchers’ period.

Conclusion

In conclusion, public relations contribute to framing theory in many ways. Framing

theory has been researched by many people and they all come to the same conclusion which is

framing needs to be looked at continuously. Public relations and framing theory fuel one another

bye feeding off each other, news outlets report on stories, and they set the stage or the frame for

how the story will be told and seen which affects the audiences that watch. Mental illness is one

of the topics that these frames are continuously used on. News outlets, social media platforms

and even news journals majority of the time use stigmatizing frames when discussing mental

illness. To combat this there are also news journals that have stigma challenging frames, that

show the other side of mental illness and that mental illness is not always attached to some sort

of tragedy. The issue with this is that you can only be on one side or the other, when there are

only two sides to pick from you have no choice but to pick one or the other. It was shown in the

scholarly articles that I read that the audiences tend to support the claims made in the articles

whether they be stigmatizing or stigma challenging. I also found that mental illness is a

backburner topic, it's not talked about unless it must be talked about, when it is talked about it is

tied to some sort of negative aspect or event or even when someone passes away due to mental
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illness. In my opinion the findings in the scholarly articles were eye opening and showed me a

lot of different perspectives that I did not think of. As I stated before this is something I hope

researchers continue to investigate and continue to write about to inform the public. I hope in the

future we can recognize these frames and break them down.

References

Dillman Carpentier, F. R., & Parrott, M. S. (2016). Young adults’ information seeking following
celebrity suicide: Considering involvement with the celebrity and emotional distress in
health communication strategies. Health Communication, 31(11), 1334–1344.
https://doi.org/10.1080/10410236.2015.1056329

Gwarjanski, A. R., & Parrott, S. (2017). Schizophrenia in the news: The role of news frames in
shaping online reader dialogue about mental illness. Health Communication, 33(8), 954–
961. https://doi.org/10.1080/10410236.2017.1323320

Major, L. H. (2017). Mental health news: How frames influence support for policy and civic
engagement intentions. Journal of Health Communication, 23(1), 52–60.
https://doi.org/10.1080/10810730.2017.1411994

Myrick, J. G., & Pavelko, R. L. (2017). Examining differences in audience recall and reaction
between mediated portrayals of mental illness as trivializing versus stigmatizing. Journal
of Health Communication, 22(11), 876–884.
https://doi.org/10.1080/10810730.2017.1367338

Quintero Johnson, J. M., Yilmaz, G., & Najarian, K. (2016). Optimizing the presentation of
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on source perceptions, message processing, and health outcomes. Health
Communication, 32(9), 1121–1132. https://doi.org/10.1080/10410236.2016.1214218
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Record, R. A., Silberman, W. R., Santiago, J. E., & Ham, T. (2018). I sought it, I reddit:
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Health Communication, 23(5), 470–476. https://doi.org/10.1080/10810730.2018.1465493

Wilson, L. C., Ballman, A. D., & Buczek, T. J. (2015). News content about mass shootings and
attitudes toward mental illness. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 93(3), 644–
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Zhang, Y., Jin, Y., Stewart, S., & Porter, J. (2016). Framing responsibility for depression: How
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