Madness, Power and the Media : Class, Gender and Race in Popular Representations of Mental Distress

this Book Is An Examination Of The Language And Images Used To Depict Mental Distress In Contemporary Popular Culture, Including Analysis Of News Media, Magazines, Television And Film. Questioning the psychiatric construction of mental distress as 'illness', and challenging existing studies of media stigmatization, Stephen Harper argues that today's media images of mental distress are often sympathetic, yet tend to reproduce the sexist, classist, racist and individualist ideologies of contemporary capitalism. Madness, Power and the Media offers fresh and controversial insights into the changing role of mental distress in contemporary Western culture. The text is fully up-to-date, covering film, television and print media texts since the mid-1990s and addressing the recent explosion of interest in celebrity 'breakdowns'. Engaging with existing scholarship in the field, the book challenges some longstanding and widespread critical assumptions about the nature and causes of madness and about the connection between mental distress and violence. Arguing strongly for the social constructedness of madness, Stephen Harper shows how the media's treatment of distress is inflected by discourses of class, gender and race and how mediated images and stories about madness can become a source of empowerment as well as shame in a world in which madness is glorified as much as it is stigmatized "Madness, Power and the Media offers fresh and controversial insights into the changing role of mental distress in contemporary Western culture. The text is fully up-to-date, covering film, television and print media texts since the mid-1990s and addressing the recent explosion of interest in celebrity 'breakdowns'. Engaging with existing scholarship in the field, the book challenges some longstanding and widespread critical assumptions about the nature and causes of madness and about the connection between mental distress and violence. Arguing strongly for the social constructedness of madness, Stephen Harper shows how the media's treatment of distress is inflected by discourses of class, gender and race and how mediated images and stories about madness can become a source of empowerment as well as shame in a world in which madness is glorified as much as it is stigmatized."--Publisher's website Contents......Page 6 Acknowledgements......Page 7 1 Framing Madness: Historical and Cultural Debates......Page 8 2 Stigmatisation, Violence and Media Criticism......Page 39 3 The Suffering Screen: Cinematic Portrayals of Mental Distress......Page 66 4 Channelling Affliction: Television Discourses of Distress......Page 110 5 A New Leaf?: Changing Representations of Mental Distress in Print Media......Page 158 Conclusion: Media, Madness and Ideology......Page 193 Bibliography......Page 207 B......Page 228 C......Page 230 E......Page 231 F......Page 232 G......Page 233 H......Page 234 K......Page 235 M......Page 236 N......Page 238 P......Page 239 Q......Page 240 S......Page 241 T......Page 243 W......Page 244 Z......Page 245 Framing madness : historical and cultural debates Stigmatisation, violence and media criticism Suffering screen : cinematic portrayals of mental distress Channelling affliction : television discourses of distress A new leaf? : changing representations of mental distress in print media Conclusion : media, madness and ideology in capitalist society.