Runge 1

Cleo Runge

Prof. Kretzer

English 1201 Online

17 March 2019

Annotated Bibliography

My essay will be tackling the issue of how mental illness is portrayed in the media. I

would like to know what some of the best and worst depictions of mental health in recent years,

and possibly find out how audiences and critics reacted to them. How has popular culture

contributed to the most commonly known stereotypes regarding mental illness? How do the

stereotypes compare to the reality of these conditions? If I can find enough information, I am

also interested in finding out how fake news has contributed to these false ideas.

Levin, Aaron. “Media Cling to Stigmatizing Portrayals of Mental Illness.” Psychiatric

News, 16 Dec. 2011, p. 18,

psychnews.psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/pn.46.24.psychnews_46_24_16-a. Accessed

17 March 2019.

Written by Aaron Levin, the news article “Media Cling to Stigmatizing Portrayals of

Mental Illness” was published in an issue of Psychiatric News and on their website on December

16, 2011. It addresses the issue of mental illness being portrayed negatively in the media and

attempts to pinpoint some of the main factors behind it. The main purpose of this article is to

inform readers, most likely people interested in psychiatry or psychology, of the problem itself

and possible reasons as to why it is so common.

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I can tell that the author is credible because of his various other experiences in writing in

this field. Levin has written several other articles for Psychiatric News, many of which revolve

around similar topics with the media like this one. His website reveals that he used to be a

science writer, and he now writes for nearly every type of topic covered for Psychiatric News. I

can also tell that Psychiatric News is trustworthy because it is run by an organization meant for

both professional and future psychiatrists.

When writing my essay, I may use this article when explaining how fake news and other

factors could possibly affect people’s views on mental illness. The author briefly mentions how

deinstitutionalization and bias could be contributing to the inaccurate portrayals, and bias plays a

huge role in fake news nowadays. I could also use this article to add on to the topic of common

stereotypes and where these misconceptions can be found besides movies and television.

Longden, Eleanor, performer. The Voices in My Head | Eleanor Longden. YouTube,

TED, 8 Aug. 2013, www.youtube.com/watch?v=syjEN3peCJw. Accessed 17 March

2019.

Posted to YouTube on August 8, 2013, “The Voices in My Head” is an online video of a

speech given by Eleanor Longden. In the video, Longden tells the story of how she was

diagnosed with schizophrenia and her experiences with it over the course of several years. The

purpose of her speech is to provide listeners with a primary source regarding the struggles and

road to recovery of dealing with mental illness. In general, the speech was targeted at anyone

browsing YouTube or anyone interested in TED’s videos.

TED is a well-known organization, especially on YouTube, so bringing on someone who

is not qualified to talk about this issues would be detrimental to their reputation. Fortunately, it is
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not hard to find more information about Longden that points to her being credible. Not only is

Longden credible for her personal experiences with schizophrenia, but she is also a researcher

who has studied psychology; her information can also be found on several other sites through a

simple Google search. I know that the information Longden presents is accurate because the

symptoms she describes match up with the signs of schizophrenia described on medical sites.

In my essay, I would like to use this video as a primary source of evidence when

comparing portrayals of mentally ill patients to what mental illness really looks like. I feel that it

would make the most sense to use someone’s real-life experiences to test whether or not a certain

portrayal is accurate since they would likely understand the struggles the most.

Nedelman, Michael. “What Shyamalan's 'Split' Gets Wrong.” CNN, Cable News

Network, 23 Jan. 2017, 4:32 PM, www.cnn.com/2017/01/23/health/shyamalan-split-

movie-dissociative-identity-disorder/index.html. Accessed 17 March 2019.

Michael Nedelman’s article “What Shyamalan’s ‘Split’ Gets Wrong” was posted to CNN

on January 23, 2017. The article goes over the experiences of several real-life patients suffering

from dissociative identity disorder, and explains why the portrayal of DID in the film “Split” is

too extreme and negative. The film is also pretty relevant to my topic because the target audience

is mainly the general public, but the fact that the article was published just days after “Split’s”

release date could also mean that it was meant for people looking for movie reviews.

Nedelman is credible because a CNN producer who focuses on health-related stories,

meaning he has dealt with topics similar to those in this article before. He also has his own

website that showcases his other health articles and includes a short biography of his work. This

may not be the only article out there criticizing “Split’s” portrayal of DID, but it shows more
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signs of reliability than others. I can tell that this is a reliable source because Nedelman refers to

a variety of outside sources, including multiple real life patients suffering from DID. This article

is relevant to my topic because it covers a fairly recent movie with a stereotype problem.

I plan on using this article to answer my question on why a certain portrayal of mental

illness in recent years was badly received. I also feel that I should refer to this article when

referring to common mental health stereotypes depicted in the media. During my research, one of

the most common themes I picked up on was the media portraying mentally ill people as

dangerous or as potential criminals; Nedelman’s article dives deeper into one of the many

examples of this trend.

Parrott, Scott, and Caroline T. Parrott. “Law & Disorder: The Portrayal of Mental Illness

in U.S. Crime Dramas.” Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, vol. 59, no. 4, Dec.

2015, pp. 640–657. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1080/08838151.2015.1093486.

Written by Scott and Caroline T. Parrott, this article was created in December of 2015

and can be found through the database EBSCOhost. It examines mental illness stereotypes and

counter-stereotypes portrayed in American television shows, specifically crime-fiction, and

explains how these depictions could be causing many of today’s misunderstandings of mental

illnesses. The purpose of this article is to use an experiment to identify and analyze the most

common mental illness stereotypes and compare them to the statistics of real-life mental patients.

The authors demonstrate their credibility by thoroughly explaining the processes they

went through during their experiment, discussing the results, and including a long list of their

outside sources. This article may be lengthy, but it is very detailed and implies that the authors

put a lot of effort into it. The main author, Scott Parrott, also has other experiences in writing
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about both mental illness and society, although this article happens to be one of his earlier works.

Other credible sites reveal that Parrott has specialized in researching these topics, meaning that

he is qualified to talk about them.

I plan on using this source to help answer my question of what the biggest mental health

misconceptions are due to the media. I would also like to use the statistics from this source as

supporting evidence for why mental illness portrayal is such an important issue.

Pirkis, Jane, et al. “On-Screen Portrayals of Mental Illness: Extent, Nature, and Impacts.” Journal

of Health Communication, vol. 11, no. 5, July 2006, pp. 523–541. EBSCOhost,

doi:10.1080/10810730600755889.

“On-Screen Portrayals of Mental Illness: Extent, Nature, and Impacts” was written by

Jane Piriks, R. Warwick Blood, Catherine Francis, and Kerry McCallum. It was published on

July 5, 2006, and can be found through EBSCOhost. This source goes over an experiment that

sought to find out the extent and the impacts of fictional mental illness portrayals at the time. The

purpose of the article is to use the experiment’s results to explain why the media needs to work

harder to not portray mental illness so negatively.

In order to give the authors authority, the start of the article tells readers about where and

in what field the authors have studied. Since this information can also be found on the sites of the

universities listed, readers can trust that the authors are qualified to talk about this subject.

Similar to Scott Parrott’s article, Pirkis’ article gives readers a detailed run though of the

methods used during the experiment, thorough analyses of the sources and stereotypes that the

authors inspected, and a long list of outside references. The evidence of hard work and
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information supported by statistics gives the article a sense of accuracy, especially since the

ideas supported in it can be found in numerous other outside article.

In my essay, I plan on using this article to answer my question on how audiences are

affected by mental illness stereotypes. I may also use it as evidence to support my argument that

the media does not portray mental illness well enough.

Tartakovsky, Margarita. “The Media and Mental Illness: The Good, the Bad and the

Ridiculous.” Psych Central, 8 Oct. 2018, psychcentral.com/lib/the-media-and-mental-

illness-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ridiculous/. Accessed 17 March 2019.

Margarita Tartakovsky posted her article “The Media and Mental Illness: The Good, the

Bad and the Ridiculous” to Psych Central on October 8, 2018. The article briefly goes over a

common way that mental illness is represented in the media, then proceeds to give examples of

TV shows that either portrayed it very well or very badly. The main purpose of this article is to

inform readers of why experts believe that certain portrayals are good or bad, as well as to give

an explanation as to why not every portrayal is accurate.

Tartakovsky is trustworthy because she has been writing for over ten years and mainly

writes about psychology-related topics. More information about her, as well as her other articles,

can be found on her own website and on Psych Central’s website. The information she presents

in this article is also similar to what can be found on other sites, giving the article accuracy. It is

also a very recent article, and currency is important for topics relating to present issues like mine.

I would like to use this article to answer my question of what a few examples of good

portrayals of mental illness could be. I trust this source more than simple “top ten mental illness

portrayals” lists mainly because of the author’s many years of experience with writing about
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mental health. I would also like to discuss the argument in the final paragraph because it goes

over the media’s role in presenting mental illness.

Whitley, Robert. “Is The Media Getting Better At Portraying Mental Illness?” HuffPost

Canada, 17 Feb. 2017, 5:41, www.huffingtonpost.ca/robertwhitley/media-portraying-

mental-illness_b_14798608.html. Accessed 17 March 2019.

Robert Whitley’s article “Is The Media Getting Better At Portraying Mental Illness?” was

posted to HuffPost Canada on February 17, 2017. Its contents explain why an attempt was made

to improve mental illness portrayal in Canadian media and how audiences tended to receive these

changes in a positive light. Aimed at the general public, the purpose of Whitley’s article is to

show that the media can successfully portray mental illnesses in a positive manner. It was written

shortly after Vincent Li, who had previously committed a crime, was released from a mental

hospital. Based on the context of this article, it seems that the criticisms following this event

were the main factors behind the media improvements.

Whitley is an associate professor in psychiatry, alluding that he has a lot of knowledge on

these types of topics. He has also written numerous other mental health-related articles, some of

which can be found on other websites. Whitley also sites several outside sources throughout this

particular article, proving that he did his research and has credibility.

While this article does not necessarily answer any of my initial questions, it does provide

a great counter argument that I could address in my essay. This article has a generally positive

viewpoint on how the media can portray mental illness, while my own essay will mainly focus

on the negative aspects.