I did my research paper on the consequences of news outlets not showing the full picture when it comes to mental illness. For decades, news stories on mental illness have overwhelmingly shown a link between mental illness and interpersonal violence. As a result, stereotypes of people with mental illness are only engraved into the minds of the general public. Stigma makes it very difficult for people with mental illness to help themselves because not enough public policies exist that encourage treatment/rehabilitation. This leaves the mentally ill on a fence. However, if you want to change something you have to take matters into your own hands. A portion of the mentally ill population have done just that and successfully recovered with the help of the few options available to them and contribute to society in ways you otherwise wouldn’t read or hear about on the news.
This topic wasn’t my first choice, but I did write down “homeless people” as a possible topic for this project. The communities are similar in the fact that they face stigma fueled by factors out of their control. There are also not enough public policies in place that help them in the way that they should. What I found interesting when researching this topic were the numbers. In the study I used, 7% of the stories in the sample were positive.
