An Analysis of Eight East-Coast Australian Newspapers' Coverage of Mental Illness Stories, 2000-2014

This study focused on the stories Australian journalists tell, and have told, about persons with mental illness in articles published in eight east-coast Australian newspapers, 2000-2014. A total of 1302 articles were sourced, containing both search terms `mental illness' and `mentally ill'. The study is innovative in that it draws on the history of mental illness to contextualize the stories published in the twenty-first century. Qualitative in its methodological approach, roughly forty per cent of the entire sample was coded `violence'. Analysis revealed that journalists frequently employ mental illness as an explanatory device to account for stories of violence, and in particular, murder. Mental illness was more likely to be drawn on in cases involving women who killed others, particularly family members, whereas men were more often portrayed as deliberate, calculated, and cold in their actions, as opposed to insane.