Document Type

Article

Publication Title

BMC Psychiatry

Abstract

A recent bibliometric analysis of 130 research studies on media coverage of mental disorders between 2002 and 2022 found that, in most cases, research insists that media coverage of mental disorders is generally negative. The objective of this research is to examine the tone and content of articles on mental health in the main digital media in Ibero-America in 2023. Likewise, we sought to identify the most common types of disorders or emerging disorders and whether the news items establish very simplistic links of mental health with topics such as video games and social, financial, or gender issues. In this study, simplistic links were defined as media representations that establish direct and unsubstantiated causal relationships between mental health and a single external factor, such as social media use, video games, or certain social or gender conditions. For example, headlines that attribute depression exclusively to TikTok use or that associate anxiety solely with being female, without nuance or empirical support, were classified in this category. In contrast, approaches that acknowledge multiple causes or include expert perspectives were coded as complex or contextualized analyses. This distinction allowed for the identification of reductionist media narratives that reinforce stereotypes or oversimplify psychosocial phenomena.

DOI

10.1186/s12888-025-07694-3

Publication Date

1-2026

Language

eng

Rights

open access

Download

Share

COinS