Is social media helping people talk about mental health?

by | Feb 8, 2015 | mental health, PhD, social media | 3 comments

This week the Guardian published an article #timetotalk: Is social media helping people talk about mental health? to coincide with Time to Talk Day run by the Time to Change campaign. #timetotalk asked us all to spend five minutes talking about mental health so we can break down stigma and increase understanding. Time to Change have really embraced social tools to spread their message, as in this short film promoting #timetotalk I was struck by the question posed by the Guardian, as it gets to the heart of one of the themes I have been considering in my PhD research over the last few years. It also caused me to reflect that back in 2011 when I began my research, I would never have imagined such a headline would make it into the mainstream media. It  is a reminder of how embedded online social networking has become in our day-to-day lives (at least for many of us) and evidence of the particular affordances of social media for people talking about difficult issues such as mental health. My online ethnographic research has primarily focused on a now defunct blog and the ecoystem of blogs that surrounded it. It’s another reminder of the fluid and impermanent nature of online social networks. During my fieldwork the conversation moved inexorably from the slower paced and asynchronous world of blogs (or madosphere as some called it at the time) towards the faster paced world of Twitter and real-time chats. What was once a space and set of practices that felt subversive and risky to many of its participants, is now increasingly bubble wrapped in professional...
Mental health stigma – thinking it through in the classroom

Mental health stigma – thinking it through in the classroom

by | Nov 1, 2012 | mental health, PhD | 0 comments

As a PhD student I get to do some teaching within the Institute of Communications. I recently did my first ever session with Masters Degree students undertaking a module on The Politics of Personal Performance with Professor Stephen Coleman, who is also my supervisor. The module explores ‘the ways in which interpersonal communication is based upon a series of performances in which we play ourselves and come to recognise others through their performances’. It is based upon the theories of Goffman and Garfinkel. My session was on the topic of ‘stigma’ and drew on Stigma: Notes of the Management of a Spoiled Identity by Erving Goffman (1963). In my literature review I’ve found that most subsequent academic work on the topic refers back to this seminal work. You can find the slides I used for the session here. I used the official trailer for the film Asylum (2005) as a prompt for discussion about how mental health stigma is often perpetuated in popular culture. You can find a useful critique of the role movies play in reinforcing mental health stigma by Dr Peter Byrne in Screening Madness. By way of contrast I showed the fantastic film made by johnjusthuman which has been shortlisted for a 2012 Mind Media award. The film employs all the characteristics of what empirical research has shown to be most effective in challenging mental health stigma – a personal story which shows a recovery journey in the context of a diagnosis (schizophrenia) which is commonly associated with being a life-long condition in the popular imagination. It is told from a first person perspective, with emotion and...
What’s social media got to do with mental health stigma?

What’s social media got to do with mental health stigma?

by | Feb 26, 2012 | mental health | 4 comments

I’ve been reading some of the literature on mental health stigma and thinking about the role social media can play in influencing attitudes and behaviours. Checking out the Time to Change campaign, which had 93,996 fans on Facebook and 13,865 followers on Twitter when I last checked, it is clear that social media is increasingly part of the mix. Just to give you an example of how messages/ideas can go viral on social media, when actress Rebecca Front tweeted: “Hey well known Twitterers. Fancy taking the stigma out of mental illness? I’ll start: I’m Rebecca Front & I’ve had panic attacks. #whatstigma” she got mental health hitting the top trending list. You can find out more about it it here . Here are a few of my initial ponderings about the role of social media as a platform for challenging stigma… Have you ever talked to someone about mental health? – Time to Change’s strap line is ‘it’s time to talk’ and this is based on research that getting people talking about mental health increases understanding. Face-to-face contact is the most effective way to positively influence discriminatory attitudes. However, it appears that contact has to be on an equal footing to be effective. Social media is a great equaliser. Twitter only allows you 140 characters whatever your status or income. I’m interested in the extent to which this sort of virtual contact may replicate direct contact. My friend’s ok with this so why shouldn’t I be? – I’ve seen quite a bit out there recently about the value of online trust – people trusting the people they follow more than they...