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PP 392
Covering Mental Illness – Journalistic Views and Perspectives on Scientific Uncertainty and Social Stigma in News Media
M. Hallén
1
, H. Jormfeldt
1
1
Halmstad University, School of Health and Welfare, Halmstad, Sweden
The news media are one of the most important public sources of information on psychiatric disorders. However, research on news media content has
established that journalistic coverage of mental illness is largely characterized by inaccuracies, exaggerations, and misinformation. Studies consistently
show that both entertainment and news media provide overwhelmingly dramatic and distorted images of mental illness that emphasize dangerousness,
criminality and unpredictability. According to previous research, newspapers might even contribute to mental illness stigma through negative news con‑
tent. For example, insufficient stories on recovery may promote the belief that mental illness cannot be treated effectively. Also, news media can contribute
to the maintaining of mental illness stigma by negative portrayals of individuals with these illnesses, making them vulnerable to social rejection and
discrimination. Research on journalistic coverage of mental illness has also problematized the tendency to use incorrect or inappropriate language, thus
devaluing the degree of scientific accuracy (for example, the incorrect or careless use of psychiatric terms). There is also a significant tendency to overes‑
timate the explanatory value of genetics regarding the causes of mental illnesses and methods of treatment. There is a need for more research on how
news about mental illness is produced, for example, what resources reporters use in covering stories and how reporters select, frame, and develop stories.
Further, little information exists on how journalists overcome barriers to quality health reporting, for example, lack of time, lack of space, and commercial‑
ism. This paper analyzes journalistic views and perspectives regarding mental illness and the news media coverage of issues regarding mental illness. In
particular, challenges in reporting scientific issues such as causes of mental disorders and their treatments will be focused. This study is based on qualitative
semi-structured interviews with 8 journalists from Swedish metropolitan newspapers. The interview protocol served the function of “wide” questions for
the purposes of allowing respondents to generate their own key terms. The journalists were chosen based on a newspaper article database search (focusing
mental health issues), and the most frequent journalists in the article sample were contacted by email. The interviews were conducted by phone between
February and March 2016 and were audio recorded. The journalists interviewed were initially asked to reflect upon different issues regarding mental illness;
possible causes, different diagnosis, chances of recovery etc. Thereafter the interview focused the journalists view on media coverage of mental illness with
special focus on news media, eg perspectives/bias in the journalistic representations, absent theories/approaches, choice of sources, strategies for research,
journalistic work routines and procedures, most difficult challenges and journalistic responsibilities. Finally, they were asked to reflect upon possible chang‑
es in public attitudes and opinions regarding mental illness over the last few decades and the potential role of the news media in such a development.
PP 393
Between ‘Debunking’ and ‘Echo-Chamber’ Effects. Exploring the Childhood Vaccine Controversy Among Italian Facebook Users
S. Mulargia
1
, F. Comunello
2
, L. Parisi
3
1
Sapienza University of Rome, Comunicazione e Ricerca Sociale, Rome, Italy
2
LUMSA University, Rome, Italy
3
John Cabot University, Rome, Italy
The internet and social media represent an increasingly relevant source for acquiring scientific information among Italian citizens (Observa, 2011). Con‑
temporary media ecologies, the rise of a fragmented public sphere and the production of user-generated content have contributed to disseminate disin‑
formation and misinformation, providing a broader audience to ‘alternative’information (Bronner, 2013). In this paper, we focus on the motivations and on
the perceptions of Italian Facebook users who are actively engaged in spreading ‘official’ or ‘alternative’ scientific information, adopting as our case study
the vaccines and autism controversy. In this context, evidence about the role of social media is still ambivalent, showing, on the one hand, that the contem‑
porary public sphere is made of homophilic social networks aggregating users sharing similar points of view, also producing so-called echo-chamber effects
(Bessi et al., 2015), and, on the other hand, the effectiveness of specific tools and practices in ‘correcting’misinformation (Bode and Vraga, 2015). The ma‑
jority of research addressing misinformation on social media is based on quantitative analysis. While this research provides relevant insights, we believe
that scholars should also better explore users’motivations and perceptions. Therefore, our paper provides an in-depth analysis of the main communicative
practices, and of the sense-giving processes, carried out by Facebook users dealing with scientific topics, both from an ‘official’ and from an ‘alternative’
standpoint. Major attention is devoted to motivation, perception, social negotiation.Through semi-structured interviews with respondents selected among
‘alternative’ and ‘official’ scientific Facebook Pages active members, we investigate users actively engaged with Pages that affirm that childhood vaccines
cause autism, and with Pages claiming that babies are safer being vaccinated. In order to better explore how users gather and/or produce information
about scientific topics on Facebook, these results are compared with practices carried out by‘neutral’users (ie. users who do not have a well-defined opinion
about the topic). As we are interested in platform-specific actions, and in the related sense-giving processes, we also experiment with using an original
modus operandi which merges together a semi-structured interview with the cognitive walkthrough approach normally used in usability analysis. We
offer a set of scenarios, and provide respondents with a set of tasks to be performed within their Facebook account, also asking them to think aloud while
accomplishing the task. References Bessi, A., Petroni, F., Del Vicario, M., Zollo, F., Anagnostopoulos, A., Scala, A., Caldarelli, G. & Quattrociocchi, W. (2015).
Viral misinformation: The role of homophily and polarization. In Proceedings of the 24
th
International Conference on World Wide Web Companion (pp.
355–356). International WorldWideWeb Conferences Steering Committee. Bode, L., &Vraga, E. K. (2015). In Related News, ThatWasWrong: The Correction
of Misinformation Through Related Stories Functionality in Social Media. Journal of Communication, 65(4), 619–638. Bronner, G. (2013). La démocratie des
crédules. Presses universitaires de France. Davies, P., Chapman, S., & Leask, J. (2002). Antivaccination activists on the world wide web. Archives of disease in
childhood, 87(1), 22–25. Observa (2011). Annuario Scienza e Società. Il Mulino.