scholarly journals Psychiatrists and the public

1991 ◽  
Vol 15 (12) ◽  
pp. 795-795 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rosalind Ramsay

One hundred and fifty years on, how, Professor Clare asked an invited audience of eminent non-psychiatrists at the Royal Society of Medicine, do we fare? Is there really a more positive attitude to mental illness, now than in the nineteenth century, or even the 1960s? The Victorian public image of madness was characterised by ignorance, intolerance and fear and the mentally ill regarded as less than human, available to be exploited or used to entertain; and also, dangerous and incurable, best put away in large mental hospitals or ‘bins’. The media colluded in maintaining such attitudes: a leader in The Times in 1900, commenting on the 30-fold increase in the mental hospital population, was anxious that soon the mad might outnumber the sane!

2020 ◽  
Vol 53 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-108 ◽  
Author(s):  
HELEN PIEL

AbstractJohn Maynard Smith (1920–2004) was one of Britain's most eminent evolutionary biologists. For over forty years, from 1954 onwards, he also regularly appeared on radio and television. He primarily acted as a scientific expert on biology, but in the late 1960s and the 1970s he often spoke on the implications of science (biology and more generally) for society. Through four case studies, this paper analyses Maynard Smith's scientific broadcasting against developments within the BBC as well as the relation between science and society in Britain. It finds that while Maynard Smith acknowledged and accepted increasing mediation through the BBC and its producers, he stayed publicly and privately critical of both format and content decisions in his reflections on the science–media relationship. At the same time, we find that over a decade before the 1985 report by the Royal Society on the public understanding of science, Maynard Smith came to think of engagement with the public via the media as scientists’ responsibility.


1986 ◽  
Vol 31 (5) ◽  
pp. 431-433 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Matas ◽  
N. El-Guebaly ◽  
D. Harper ◽  
M. Green ◽  
A. Peterkin

The public image of psychiatry has been tarnished in recent years. In order to determine the extent to which press coverage has contributed to negative attitudes towards psychiatry, we conducted a content analysis of a random selection of newspaper articles which appeared over a twenty-year period in two different newspapers. We found that although there had been some minor, cosmetic changes over the years, such as more appropriate headlines and more direct quotes from psychiatric experts, on the whole, content and attitudes had changed very little. An accuracy check of media reporting of forensic cases over a 20-year period revealed that when reporters have access to written material, the accuracy levels are greatly improved.


2021 ◽  
Vol 82 ◽  
pp. 53-78
Author(s):  
Angelina Ilieva ◽  

In February 2020, the Bulgarian government established the National Operational Headquarters for Combating the COVID-19 Pandemic in Bulgaria. General Ventsislav Mutafchiyski, a military doctor, professor at the Military Medical Academy in Sofia, was appointed as its chairman. This paper presents a case study on the public image of Ventsislav Mutafchiyski, its readings and interpretations by the audience, and the specific fan culture that emerged around his media persona during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Bulgaria. Placed in the spotlight of the media at the very beginning of the crisis, Mutafchiyski became extremely popular as the public figure most strongly associated with the fight against the spread of the disease in the country. Around his media persona, shaped in the public imagination as a wartime leader, a fan culture has grown with all its characteristic features and dimensions: fans and anti-fans, affirmative and transformative fandom. As a fictional character, Mutafchiyski has appeared in numerous forms of vernacular creativity: poems, songs, material objects, jokes, fake news, conspiracy theories, and memes. In this way, the General has become the main character of Bulgarian pandemic folklore and the focal point of a participatory pandemic.


1999 ◽  
Vol 23 (7) ◽  
pp. 430-430 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geoffrey Searle

I think I can honestly say that I am a seasoned complainer, although I am careful not to attempt to be Mary Whitehouse and I do not assiduously scan the media looking for trouble. My interest in the area of stigmatization started with an episode of the TV drama Boon, where they suddenly had a character become ‘mentally ill’ so that he could conveniently shoot the hero to achieve a cliff-hanging end-of-series episode. Subsequently I specialised in the portrayal of mental illness in dramatic productions, joined the Public Education Campaign divisional network and had some media training. I have been listed as an expert in the portrayal of mental illness for five years but have never been approached for my advice on this area. However, following this year's announcement of the new Royal College of Psychiatrists' campaign ‘Changing Minds: Every Family in the Land’, I obtained all the names and addresses in Deborah Hart and Jill Phillipson's article above and stood ready to ‘do my bit’ for truth and honesty.


Author(s):  
Justin Patch

The musical elements of political advertising change with the times. From songsters, contrafactum songs with lyrics that extoll one candidate or party and denigrate the other, to television and radio jingles and online ads, the aesthetics of the campaign mirror the media diet of the public. Early television ads imitated jingles of the day: They were simple, catchy, and repetitive. Both Eisenhower’s “Ike for President” and Kennedy’s “Kennedy” follow this mold. Johnson’s 1964 campaign breaks this mold with “Daisy,” an anti-Goldwater ad known for deploying the eerie sounds of nuclear war. Successive campaigns sought to use a similar recipe, employing cues from film scores and trailers to dictate the emotional content of the ad. Recently, online advertising has bloomed, including tribute videos and promotional spots made by citizens and submitted to the campaign, adding grassroots allure and authenticity.


Author(s):  
Rocío Zamora ◽  
Juan Antonio Marín Albadalejo

Resumen Lo que algunos ya llaman una cultura política del escándalo (Barkin, 1999; Thompson, 2001; Castells, 2009) ha supuesto el reconocimiento del poder de los medios en la construcción simbólica del escándalo, a partir del énfasis en ciertos marcos interpretativos con los que se narran las conductas que condicionan la percepción pública de los escándalos políticos. Este trabajo se centra en la representación simbólica de los escándalos de corrupción política. El análisis de la cobertura periodística sobre un caso de gran actualidad en Murcia, el ‘caso Umbra’, demuestra que, además de por el relato político-técnico, legal y moral, los escándalos de corrupción política pueden ser también enmarcados desde el enfoque reputacional, es decir, a partir de preocupación por el deterioro de la imagen que la proliferación de escándalos de corrupción política ofrece sobre un territorio concreto y  sus instituciones.Palabras clave Escándalo político, corrupción política, framing, cultura política, poder político.AbstractWe live in, as some scholars called, a scandal political culture (Barkin, 1999; Thompson, 2001; Castells, 2009) that has supposed the recognition of the media power in the symbolic construction of scandals, where the emphasis in certain interpretive frames with which behaviours are narrated determine public perceptions of the political scandals. This article focuses on the symbolic representation of political corruption scandals. The analysis of the media coverage on this great current importance case in Murcia, called the ‘Umbra’ case, demonstrates that, besides the political- technical, legal and moral, the political corruption, scandals can be framed also from the reputation approach, that is to say, from the worried deterioration on the public image that political corruption scandals proliferation supposes on a concrete territory and his institutions.Keywords Political scandal, political corruption, framing, political culture, political power.


2017 ◽  
Vol 68 (4) ◽  
pp. 784-806
Author(s):  
TINE VAN OSSELAER

The article focuses on an episode concerning the photographs of the famous Belgian stigmatic, Louise Lateau. Examining the events leading up to the bishop's decision to restrict the circulation of her portrait, it becomes clear that the ‘affair’ of 1877 was as much about creating her public saintly image as it was about controlling it. Studying the ecclesiastical response to grassroots initiatives adds a more religious perspective to the young field of celebrity studies and offers a more complex view on sanctity, and the role of the media and modern techniques in its creation, use and misuse.


2015 ◽  
Vol 58 (2) ◽  
pp. 641-661 ◽  
Author(s):  
TOBIAS HARPER

AbstractThe importance of the honours system as an institution in British politics and public life has frequently been underestimated. At the end of the First World War, the British government prioritized voluntary service to the state as an area which the honours system should reward more than others through the newly created Order of the British Empire. However, after the war the Order changed to focus more on civil servants, soldiers, and the broad category of ‘local service’. The latter could include volunteers, but more often did not. Various attempts to democratize honours through reforms from the 1960s focused on rewarding a wider range of service. The most successful of these was John Major's honours reform programme in 1993, which returned volunteer service to the forefront of the public image of honours. While these reforms were not as egalitarian as they seemed, they were successful because they integrated an ideology of crown honours with the other functions of the modern monarchy and opened up the honours system to a wider potential set of recipients. At the same time, they maintained a hierarchical structure that meant that elites who had traditionally enjoyed the exclusivity of high honours continued to do so.


2020 ◽  
pp. 402-422
Author(s):  
A. S. Stoletova

Based on the archival sources first introduced into the scientific community, the article highlights the question of the material well-being of Soviet citizens in estimates of the mass consciousness of the 1960s and 1980s. Within the framework of the problems, the well-being of citizens, which are the drivers of the socio-economic development of the state, are considered. In addition, the mental side of the processes is affected. The question is raised of social stratification, the beginning of the formation of a new structure of society as the realities of the second half of the 20th century. It is noted that in the public environment, vigilant monitoring of the excessive enrichment of persons in leadership positions was conducted. Based on the analysis of the material database of the Russian State Archive of Recent History, the author concludes that the trend of the time was the increase in the number of illegal acquisitions in three areas: housing, motor transport, personal household plots. A problem related to modernization processes in the spiritual sphere of life in Soviet society is raised. It is shown that there were changes in the behavioral stereotypes of social classes in the development of the right to use socialist property in this area, in relation to things and the desire for a comfortable life in society. It is concluded that the global consequence of these phenomena is the affirmation of private property morality.


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