Clinical practical

Question 1

research question

Answer 1

Does the media sensationalise mental illness in a negative way compared to the reality of mental illness?​

Question 2

methodology we use

Answer 2

summative content analysis

Question 3

summative content analysis - procedure

Answer 3

• Indirect observation to analyse content that has already been created (artefacts)​
• Create coding units- top down/ bottom up​
• Turn qual data into quant- data is analysed according to coding units (manifest content)​
• Look beyond quant data to explore hidden meaning (latent content)

Question 4

how does the media generally portray mental illness

Answer 4

negatively

Question 5

pre-existing research on how the media portrays mental illness

Answer 5

• Wilson
• Suart

Question 6

Wilson

Answer 6

• analysed prime time television
• over 1 year
• identified 10 themes
• 9 of which were negative

Question 7

which 2 themes did Wilson find which were most common

Answer 7

• dangerousness
• unpredictability

Question 8

Stuart

Answer 8

• studies show that both entertainment and news media provide drastic and distorted images of mental illness
• which emphasise dangerousness, unpredictability, criminality
• model negative reactions to the mentally ill
• including fear, rejection

Question 9

aim

Answer 9

• to investigate whether the media portrayals of mental illness (in films)
• show patients to be more aggressive

Question 10

what behavioural categories have we used to determine whether patients are aggressive

Answer 10

• punched
• said f word
• kicked
• shouted
• pushed

Question 11

1 tailed hypothesis

Answer 11

• The fictional media portrayal of mental illness
• will include a significantly greater number of negative behaviours (negative content)
• than factual sources

Question 12

null hypothesis

Answer 12

• There will be no difference in the number of negative behaviours between fictional media sources and factual sources
• Any difference will be due to chance

Question 13

sources

Answer 13

• 3 fictional sources from films
• 3 real life cases of SZ, Sociopath, dissociative identity disorder

Question 14

describe sources

Answer 14

• 2 women, 4 men
• UK and USA clips
• range of different mental disorders
• fake are from films
• real are documentaries

Question 15

data gathering task

Answer 15

• make a tally on how many behavioural categories were in each clip
• compare tallies
• make notes of the context in which the behaviour was shown in

Question 16

why is this an important investigation

Answer 16

• mental health is represented unfairly and negatively in media
• causing negative stigmas of mental health to be had

Question 17

components of writing up a report

Answer 17

• abstract
• introduction
• method
• results
• discussion

Question 18

abstract

Answer 18

• summary of background theory
• research done, aims, hypotheses, results and discussion

Question 19

introduction

Answer 19

• overview of related theories and research in topic area
• intro provides rationale for current investigation which links prior research to study aims

Question 20

method

Answer 20

• detailed account of participants
• sampling methods
• apparatus
• procedure
• controls
• ethical issues

Question 21

results

Answer 21

• detailed account of data gathered
• analysis using descriptive and inferential statistics

Question 22

discussion

Answer 22

• conclusions drawn from results analysis
• reference to prior research
• strengths, weaknesses
• possible improvements

Question 23

Intro (excluding prior research)

Answer 23

• consequences of negative media for people with mental illness have profound effects
• impairing self esteem, help seeking behaviours, medication adherence, recovery
• promotes stigma and discrimination
• however may be useful for challenging public prejudices, initiating useful debate, projecting positive stories

Question 24

procedure - summative content analysis

Answer 24

• define categories
• identify key words/content in sources
• frequency of key words is then quantified
• if analysis stops at this point it will be quantitative as it focuses on counting frequency of content

Question 25

procedure - first - defining categories

Answer 25

- decided key words / content to look at - some were considered before analysis based on expectations after watching a range of media clips involving MH patients - list was refined as we focused on a smaller set of media clips

Question 26

2nd step - transcripts

Answer 26

- we wrote transcripts of media clips - starting with qualitative data

Question 27

3rd step - behaviour categories

Answer 27

- we defined categories we wanted to look at - looking at existing research where aggression is a common theme - aggressive behavioural categories - swearing - f word

Question 28

step 4 - reading through transcripts

Answer 28

- raw rata read through - counted frequency of key themes - creating a tally - producing quantitative data - = manifest content

Question 29

step 5 - context

Answer 29

- in some themes we recorded the context in which the behaviour occured - e.g girl interrupted - woman found out her best friend committed suicide - normal to shout/be distressed in this scenario

Question 30

what does summative content analysis involve

Answer 30

- interpretation - discovering underlying meanings of content - as meanings may differ in different contexts

Question 31

interpretation of behaviour shown -

Answer 31

- who said the word - how something was done - audience - = meaningful data

Question 32

results

Answer 32

- real case, all disorders = 0 - SZ, film = 4 (shouted), 2(pushed) - Sociopath, film = 5 (said f-word), 7 (shouted), 3 (kicked), 6 (pushed) - Dissociative identity disorder, film = 1 (pushed)

Question 33

SZ - film

Answer 33

a beautiful mind

Question 34

Sociopath - film

Answer 34

a girl interrupted

Question 35

DID - film

Answer 35

split

Question 36

quantitative findings

Answer 36

- media portrays mental disorders as more aggressive than seen in real life - in a girl interrupted the f-word was said x5 times more than the actual sociopath

Question 37

latent content

Answer 37

- girl interrupted = girl found out her best friend committed suicide, why she acted aggressive - in a beautiful mind = man is pushing his wife and baby out of the way in order to help them when he was having a hallucination of a gun being pointed at them - split = man thought he was a literal monster which is why he crushed the woman

Question 38

conclusions

Answer 38

- accepted experimental hypothesis - as media has shown us they do not accurately represent mental disorders in the media, real life patients are less aggressive - reject null

Question 39

reference to prior research

Answer 39

- Oosyck - performed meta analysis finding mental disorders a shown as negative - specifically as violent and dangerous in the media - our study supports this - e.g male SZ in beautiful mind shouted x4 times compared to none from the real life SZ

Question 40

generalisability

Answer 40

- limited - Girl interrupted(1999) & beautiful mind (2001) = same time - during this period MH is a taboo topic - outdated representations of media portrayed - however split is the newest, yet worst representation - has it gotten worse - split = 2017, 9yrs ago = outdated

Question 41

validity

Answer 41

- high - qualitative and quantitative data - tallies, manifest data, latent analysis - (use examples of findings) - quantitative data is objective and free from influence however not detailed - qualitative data is useful in mental health which is a complex topic, allows us to research in better detail

Question 42

reliability

Answer 42

- high - content analysis is standardised - e.g 3 min clip videos, transcripts - someone else can easily repeat using same coding schemes - allowing to test for consistency of results - allows us to be confident media portrays mental health in this way

Question 43

objectivity / subjectivity

Answer 43

- low - selection of clips not the whole film shown = researcher bias - category formation of key words = researchers perspective of aggression - may not be representative of entire behaviour of character throughout the film, context not included as researcher selected clips

Question 44

ethics

Answer 44

- high - no participants as there is analysis of secondary data - however research question implies negative link between aggression and mental health - negative stigma has implications for patients

Question 45

reductionist

Answer 45

- reduces behaviour of character/patients into parts - complex behaviours deduced to aggression and coding frame categorisation - reduces richness of data

Question 46

top down research

Answer 46

- cognitive approach to perception - existing knowledge, expectations and past experiences influence how we interpret information - interpreting information based on what we already know - what we expect to see affects what we actually perceive

Question 47

bottom up research

Answer 47

- type of perception that starts with raw sensory input from the environment - which is then built up into a meaningful whole without influence from prior knowledge

Question 48

top down research is what we used in our research - how does this lack validity

Answer 48

- we created our behavioural categories using previously formed stigmas that mental health patients are aggressive and dangerous - may not accurately reflect behaviour of MH patients - as we have a pre existing opinion of them being aggressive = more likely to perceive normal behaviour as aggressive