Framing madness : historical and cultural debates -- Stigmatisation, violence and media criticism -- The suffering screen : cinematic portrayals of mental distress -- Channelling affliction : television discourses of distress -- A new leaf? : changing representations of mental distress in print media -- Conclusion : media, madness and ideology
Summary
Madness, Power and the Media offers fresh and controversial insights into the changing role of mental distress in contemporary Western culture. The text is fully up-to-date, covering film, television and print media texts since the mid-1990s and addressing the recent explosion of interest in celebrity 'breakdowns'. Engaging with existing scholarship in the field, the book challenges some longstanding and widespread critical assumptions about the nature and causes of madness and about the connection between mental distress and violence. Arguing strongly for the social constructedness of madness, & nbsp;Stephen Harper & nbsp;shows how the media's treatment of distress is inflected by discourses of class, gender and race and how mediated images and stories about madness can become a source of empowerment as well as shame in a world in which madness is glorified as much as it is stigmatized
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 200-220) and index
