Book review: Michael Birch, <i>Mediating Mental Health: Contexts, Debates and Analysis</i>

<p dir="ltr">Over the past five decades, there has been an overabundance of research examining the media impact on society and individuals. Mainstream media were often seen contributing to the development of a discursive system, in which underrepresented populations such as those with mental illness are framed with negative themes such as violence and criminality. The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) in the UK, for instance, alerts us that stigmatizing themes of dangerousness in media representations fuel discrimination and stigma that impact detrimentally on the lives of sufferers (NAMI, 2001). However, research done by health professionals tended to focus predominantly on the media’s negative health impact on ‘patients’, while paying little attention to what the mental illness actually means to those living with mental ill-health and how they shape their identity in relation to media representations.</p>