An Exploration of Suicide Reporting in Canadian Newspapers

This paper explores how two large Canadian newspaper outlets cover and publish cases of suicide over the past 41 years. Utilizing a mad studies lens, this research employs critical discourse analysis to illuminate how a medicalized and individualized model of mental illness has dominated the way we view madness. As a result, the coverage of mad individuals who choose suicide consistently pathologizes and blames them, while reinforcing the notions that mad people are violent, criminal and in need of medical control. Also missing from the dialogue is a discussion and recognition of the role of the social, political, cultural, and economic context in which people become mentally distressed. More recently, self-reflexivity on the part of the journalist has grown, impacting the way cases of suicide are covered and discussed.