The Media Monitoring Project: A Baseline Description of How the Australian Media Report and Portray Suicide and Mental Health and Illness

Abstract

A number of international studies have considered the impact of media reports of suicide and mental health and illness. Typically, these have suggested that under certain conditions media reporting of suicide can lead to imitation, and that media reporting of mental health and illness can contribute to negative beliefs, stigma and discrimination. Very few relevant studies have been conducted in Australia. Much less work has looked at the extent and nature of media reporting of suicide and mental health and illness. The work that has been done has suggested that the media tend to report suicide in a sensationalist fashion and portray mental illness negatively. Once again, few studies have been conducted in Australia. The Media Monitoring Project: A Baseline Description of How the Australian Media Report and Portray Suicide and Mental Health and Illness was commissioned by the Mental Health Branch of the Commonwealth Department of Health and Aged Care to address some of the gaps in knowledge identified above, particularly with respect to the extent and nature of the reporting and portrayal of suicide, and mental health and illness, by the Australian media.