What Does Media Say About Mental Health A Literature Review Of Media

Leo Migdal

-Dec 8, 2025, 5:17 PM

what does media say about mental health a literature review of media

Julie M. Robillard, Division of Neurology, Department of Medicine, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada V6T 1Z3; email: jrobilla@mail.ubc.ca. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed... Mental health issues are prevalent among young people. An estimated 10% of children and adolescents worldwide experience a mental disorder, yet most do not seek or receive care. Media mental health awareness campaigns, defined as marketing efforts to raise awareness of mental health issues through mass media, are an effort to address this concern.

While previous research has evaluated the outcomes of specific media mental health awareness campaigns, there is limited data synthesizing their overall effects. This study addresses the knowledge gap by reviewing the existing literature on the impact of media mental health awareness campaigns on young people. A search was conducted on MEDLINE, EMBASE, PsychINFO, Web of Science, and Google Scholar for studies published between 2004 and 2022 with results specific to people aged 10 to 24. Out of 20,902 total studies identified and screened, 18 studies were included in the review. The following data were extracted from each study: characteristics and descriptions of the campaign, evaluation design and sampling, and summary of impact. The review identified evaluations of 15 campaigns from eight different countries.

Outcome evaluation methods commonly comprised of surveys and quantitative data. The campaigns were generally associated with positive changes in the attitudes, beliefs, and intentions of young people (e.g., reduced stigma) and positive changes in behaviors (e.g., increased help-seeking behaviors). The inclusion of few studies in the review indicates a need for ongoing evaluations of media mental health awareness campaigns for young people to inform good practices in their development and distribution. Keywords: mental health literacy, mental health promotion, mental health awareness, youth, adolescents, online health information, depression, anxiety, suicide awareness, suicide prevention Depression, anxiety, and suicide are among the leading mental health issues affecting young people. The World Health Organization (WHO, 2021) has reported that while 10% of children and adolescents worldwide experience a mental disorder, a majority of them do not seek help or receive care.

Suicide is also the fourth leading cause of death among 15- to 19-year-olds (WHO, 2021). Ensuring proper health education and access to mental health care is important to support well-being during adolescence and young adulthood. This article reviews dominant media portrayals of mental illness, the mentally ill and mental health interventions, and examines what social, emotional and treatment-related effects these may have. Studies consistently show that both entertainment and news media provide overwhelmingly dramatic and distorted images of mental illness that emphasise dangerousness, criminality and unpredictability. They also model negative reactions to the mentally ill, including fear, rejection, derision and ridicule. The consequences of negative media images for people who have a mental illness are profound.

They impair self-esteem, help-seeking behaviours, medication adherence and overall recovery. Mental health advocates blame the media for promoting stigma and discrimination toward people with a mental illness. However, the media may also be an important ally in challenging public prejudices, initiating public debate, and projecting positive, human interest stories about people who live with mental illness. Media lobbying and press liaison should take on a central role for mental health professionals, not only as a way of speaking out for patients who may not be able to speak out for... Also, given the consistency of research findings in this field, it may now be time to shift attention away from further cataloguing of media representations of mental illness to the more challenging prospect of...

What Does Media Say About Mental Health A Literature Review Of Media

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They Impair Self-esteem, Help-seeking Behaviours, Medication Adherence And Overall Recovery.