Study On The Influence Of Media Image Construction Of Patients With Depression On Public Attitude Towards Depression

With the continuous progress of society,mental health has been paid more and more attention by society.In the first ten days of November 2021,the Ministry of Education explicitly included depression screening in students’ health check-up,which also showed that depression was no longer the personal privacy that patients kept silent about,but an important issue in the field of public health.As the disseminator of information,the mass media’s construction of the media image of patients with depression is enough to influence the public’s attitude towards patients.This paper takes the depression-related reports of Beijing News from 2016 to 2021 as the research object,and uses content analysis method to study the media image construction of depression patients.The results show that the media images of depression patients are mainly characterized by "extreme misogynists","victims of hardship" and "positive and optimistic protesters".The image of "extreme misogynist" and "victim of poor life" constructed by the media have a positive influence on the public’s cognitive evaluation(negative);The image of "positive and optimistic protesters" has a positive influence on the public’s cognitive evaluation(positive);The image of "extreme misogynist" has a positive influence on public emotional reaction(fear);The images of "suffering victims in poor life" and "positive and optimistic protesters" have a positive influence on the public’s emotional response(pity);The images of "extreme world-wearers" and "victims of hardship" have a negative influence on the willingness of public behavior tendency;The image of "positive and optimistic protesters" has a positive influence on the willingness of public behavior tendency.Cognition plays an intermediary role between the media image of depression patients and the emotional response of the public.Emotion plays an intermediary role between the media image of depression patients and the behavior tendency of the public.Different media images affect the public’s different attitudes.Negative reports shape the negative image of depression patients and deepen the public’s stereotype of depression patients through discourse presentation and highlighting specific news events.However,the report of positive image can help and guide the public to treat patients with depression correctly in real life and form a good public opinion ecology.The news media should first pay attention to the depressed groups from an equal perspective,listen to the voices of ordinary depressed patients,and at the same time present the patients’ real living conditions,so that the public can treat depressed patients with an attitude of "listening" rather than "examining" and "accepting rather than rejecting".Secondly,it is necessary to present news facts objectively and rationally,always uphold a neutral attitude,and avoid using words with strong emotional color,so as to avoid causing public fear and bad public opinion ecology.Finally,it is necessary to avoid the simplification of reporting perspective and shallow reporting,and ask questions and think about it at the institutional level,so that patients with depression can get effective policy support and mass support,so that the public can know how to better help and support patients with depression at the action level,so as to truly correct the discriminatory behavior tendency.