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The association between the Political Leaning of UK National Newspapers and the Portrayal of Addictive Behaviour and Substance Misuse$10.44
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The association between the Political Leaning of UK National Newspapers and the Portrayal of Addictive Behaviour and Substance Misuse
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Course
Reasearch Methods
Institution
The University Of West London
Media reports on mental health can play a significant role in perpetuating stigma related to mental illness (Goulden , 2011). The coverage on the subject has not only been found to o vary by newspaper type, but also to disproportionately affect people with mental illness (Li , 2021). This study exp...
The association between the Political Leaning
of UK National Newspapers and the Portrayal
of Addictive Behaviour and Substance Misuse:
A content analysis research
QUALITATIVE RESEARCH METHODS
Module leader: Dr Jamie Churchyard
Word-Count: 2378
Trigger Waring: The content of this report includes explicit mentions of violence, suicide and mental health stigmatization.
Student ID: 21455334
BSc (Hons) Psychology -year 1
School of Human and Social Sciences, University of West London
, The association between the Political Leaning of UK National Newspapers and the Portrayal of
Addictive Behaviour and Substance Misuse: A content analysis research
Abstract:
Media reports on mental health can play a significant role in perpetuating stigma related to mental illness (Goulden et.al,
2011). The coverage on the subject has not only been found to o vary by newspaper type, but also to disproportionately
affect people with mental illness (Li et.al, 2021). This study explored the association between the Political Stance of
UK (United Kingdom) national newspapers and the Portrayal of Addictive Behaviour and Substance Misuse, due to the
issue underrepresentation in the media as a mental health subtheme. The present content analysis research used a sample
of 28 articles about Addiction in a series of 14 UK newspapers. The content was analysed in units (n = 60) and coded
according to its categories: Liberal or Conservative as 1 or 2 respectively, and as Positive/Anti-stigmatising or
Negative/Stigmatising, also, as 1 or 2, correspondingly. As accessed by the Chi-Square test, there is a statistically
significant association between Political Stance of the Newspaper Outlets and the portrayal of Addictive Behaviour and
Substance Misuse, as χ2(1) = 7,96, p < .05. The proposed alternate hypothesis was accepted, Liberal leaning newspaper
outlets portray Addictive Behaviour and Substance Misuse in a more positive/anti-stigmatising way when compared to
Conservative leaning outlets. In addition, 36.7% of units in Liberal sources expressed a positive portrayal of the subject,
while only 6.7% of those in Conservative newspapers were coded as Positive/Anti-stigmatising.
, Introduction:
It has been documented that media reports on psychopathology and mental health are strongly subjective, portraying a
misleading association between violent behaviour and mental illness (Chen & Mariel, 2017). These negative portrayals
have reinforced continuous stigmatization and lack of acceptance among those with psychiatric/psychological
diagnoses, increasing social rejection (Chen & Mariel, 2017). In addition, there is another type of stigma related to the
incapacity of recovery, rehabilitation, and reintegration into society of people who suffer from mental illness, strongly
related to substance abuse and addiction (Ferro, 2013).
A large and growing body of literature has investigated the negative impact of media coverage on mental health. For
example, Murphy et al. (2013), conducted a content analysis in which four leading UK (United Kingdom) national
newspapers were examined to determine whether there is stigma and a negative portrayal of mental health. Using this
approach, researchers have been able to found that the mentally ill were treated differently. The words "violence" and
"drugs" were greatly associated with mental illness (Murphy et al., 2013). Furthermore, in 2017, Chen and Marie
demonstrated a disparity between the media portrayal of mental health and physical health. It has conclusively been
shown that mental health reports would continue to have a more negative tone than physical health reports, and that
mental health patients would continue to be underrepresented in the media (Chen & Mariel, 2017). Recently, Bowen et
al. (2019), conducted a study in the United Kingdom, to identify the stigmatisation of mental health in newspapers’
Twitter feeds (Bowen et al., 2019). It was suggested that, despite improvements in the portrayal of mental health, the
amount of negative news in both newspapers and social remains a concern (Bowen et al., 2019).
Because the subject of Addiction and Substance Misuse is under and misrepresented in the media, while public health
and moral dependency models are prevalent (Platt, 2010), the present study focuses on its portrayal in UK national
newspapers. Media can affect civic attitudes and engage in a significant role in increasing awareness and empowering
communities to act (Li et al., 2021). Newspapers are widely and frequently available and can reach many people (Li et
al., 2021). As a result, its role in mental health notification is viewed as one of the primary channels through which the
public learns and communicates about mental health issues (Chen & Marie, 2017). The UK newspaper market can be
segmented into two main political leanings: Conservative and Liberal newspapers. Since distinct newspapers target
different audiences (Li et al., 2021), it is probable that discrepancies in how mental illness is portrayed across these
outlets can trigger different levels of stigmatization in different demographic groups (Li et al., 2021). Therefore, the
association between Political Leaning of Newspaper Outlets and the coverage of Addiction Behaviour recalls the need
of investigation.
Due to the significance of the aforementioned variable, it is useful to refer to a recent study, DeLuca et al. (2020), about
explanatory processes for ethnic and racial differences in the stigmatization of mental health. The study's findings
indicate that the support for right-wing authoritarian views is the primary mechanism of differences in mental-health
stigma between African Americans and individuals from other racial/ethnic groups, reinforcing this mechanism as
stigmatising of mental health in general. (DeLuca et al., 2020). It has been reported that authoritarianism and Social
dominance orientation independently predict conservative beliefs and prejudices, having already been described a
relationship between authoritarianism and Social Dominance Orientation in American Samples (Duriez et al., 2002).
For this reason, the political inclination of the analysed newspapers will represent an important variable in this research,
as it is expected that right-leaning Newspapers will be more stigmatizing when in contrast to liberal newspapers.
With this context in mind, it is critical to remember that the primary objective of the present research is to determine
whether there is an association between the political stance of UK newspapers and the representation of mental health,
specifically Addictive Behaviour and Substance Misuse, while also comprehending the general Newspaper
representation of the theme. For this purpose, a content analysis research was carried through the analysis of articles
published in the last 10 years. Targeting this relationship, a directional thesis has been developed and the following
alternate hypothesis proposed: Liberal leaning newspaper outlets portray Addictive Behaviour and Substance Misuse in
a more positive/anti-stigmatising way when compared to Conservative leaning outlets. As a null hypothesis has been
proposed that the tendency described in the alternate hypothesis is not present in portrayals of Addictive Behaviour and
Substance Misuse in Liberal or Conservative outlets.
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