A Study On The Influence Of Media Image Construction Of Depression On Public Social Support Behavior

Living in the society where the problem of depression has already been so severe,depression and its sufferers is shouldering unbelievable injustice and stigma.Therefore,it is beneficial to discuss the reasons behind the conflict,which is increasing number of people are suffering from depression in China,while the public awareness of depression has not increased as expected correspondingly;in addition,the reasons why public media does not play its due role of health guidance in the media construction of depression and in which part of reports in the public media is going wrong are studied.Before the main analysis,in the first two chapters,the current situation of depression is described.Then it comes to the research of domestic and foreign scholars on the media image construction of depression.In depression media image rendering chapter,it is concluded that the selected media in the previous studies have two main problems,which are partial types and lack of representativeness.To guarantee the selected media objects’ preciseness and objectivity,three typical media materials including the People’s Daily,the Beijing news,and the Observer Network,which represent traditional media,marketized media and we-media with high acceptability and media activeness respectively,are utilized for content analysis.Seven years’ time slot ranging from 2013 to 2019 is selected for gathering sufficient data.It is found that in the current media environment,5 main problems exist in the depression reports,including over-exaggeration of the topics,lack of the background introduction,absence of in-depth reporting,subjective assume of the journalists,and simplification of the report types.It is also found that there is also a trend towards demonization of depression by the mass media.Normally,patients are often labeled as murderers,self-injurers,suffering,suffering,and etc.On the contrary,few words explaining the positive,objective and neutral images of patients with depression are written.The public treats people with depression in the way which is influenced by the stigma image constructed by news events,words,reported motif and selection of framework construction way to complete the stigma of the depression and therefore lack support and understanding rooted from their inner cognitive source.Previous studies on the depression spread are mainly based on reports themselves,and simply focuses on the structure and content aspects.Relevant examples are the analysis report on the changing history of depression and differences between the frameworks of the spread of depression in media.It seems that there are blank studies on how the public attitudes toward depression is affected and how to benefit the patients based on this.Thus,how the influence of different media image construction of depression on the social report adopted by the public through empirical research is researched in the fourth chapter.It is illustrated that attitude plays the bridge role between image of depression and social supporting behaviors.Specifically,the negative media image of depression is negatively correlated with public social support,while neutral and positive image of depression patients are significantly positively correlated with public social support behavior.It can be concluded that it is of vital importance for the mass media to construct a correct image of depression patients.Based on the above,suggestions on the improvement of the depression reports in the mass media are listed.Questionnaire survey methodology,supplemented by semistructured interviews with the patients with depression,is adopted to collect the public evaluation of the depression reports,and to correct the that previous studies on the depression report concentrates on subjective opinions and lack of patient engagement.In conclusion,under the guidance of ecological model theory of health communication,it is believed that the previous construction of stigma images and mistaken labeling should be abandoned in the report of depression,and a more three-dimensional and normal image of depression should be presented to the public instead.Public media should stand the negative,renderless and non-biased position.Meanwhile,public media is responsible for increasing the basic depression knowledge of the public and encouraging the public support behaviors towards the patients.Therefore,the virtuous circle between the media,the public and the patients is possible to be formed.