'Mental Wealth' and 'Mental Fitness': The discursive construction of mental health in the Australian news media during the COVID‐19 pandemic

In this study, we analysed how the concept of 'mental health' was discursively constructed in the news media in Australia during the first year of the COVID‐19 pandemic. An approach informed by critical discursive psychology was employed to analyse a sample of 436 print and online articles published in daily newspapers between January 1 and December 31, 2020. Three main interpretative repertoires were identified in the data. Together, these repertoires functioned to construct mental health as an internal, individual reservoir of positive emotion, which individuals are responsible for building and maintaining. An ideological dilemma was also observed between mental health as an individual responsibility and mental health as a societal responsibility. This study demonstrates that a discourse of individual responsibility for mental health was prevalent in the news media in Australia, even amid the COVID‐19 pandemic, and highlights the need for communications about mental health to be designed in ways that increase understanding of the social determinants of mental health. Please refer to the Supplementary Material section to find this article's Community and Social Impact Statement.

"It's important to manage our stress": Mental health advice in the Australian print news media during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic has heightened existing concerns about mental health and illness in Australia. The news media is an important source of health information, but there has been little research into how advice about mental health is communicated to the public via the news media. In this study, we examined how advice about building and maintaining mental health was discursively constructed in the news media during the COVID-19 pandemic. A discourse analytic approach informed by critical discursive psychology was employed to analyse 436 articles published in daily newspapers in Australia between 1 January and 31 December 2020, which contained references to mental health and the COVID-19 pandemic. Three main interpretative repertoires were identified - negative emotions are a risk to mental health and must be managed; risky emotions should be managed by being controlled (based around a 'border control' metaphor); and risky emotions should be managed by being released (based around a 'pressure cooker' metaphor). This study demonstrates that, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, advice constructed negative emotions as risky and problematic; and normalized the habitual management of emotions by individuals through strategies of control and release. Potential implications of such discourses for goals of improving population mental health are discussed.

‘Mental Wealth’ and ‘Mental Fitness’: The discursive construction of mental health in the Australian news media during the

In this study, we analysed how the concept of 'mental health' was discursively constructed in the news media in Australia during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. An approach informed by critical discursive psychology was employed to analyse a sample of 436 print and online articles published in daily newspapers between January 1 and December 31, 2020. Three main interpretative repertoires were identified in the data. Together, these repertoires functioned to construct mental health as an internal, individual reservoir of positive emotion, which individuals are responsible for building and maintaining. An ideological dilemma was also observed between mental health as an individual responsibility and mental health as a societal responsibility. This study demonstrates that a discourse of individual responsibility for mental health was prevalent in the news media in Australia, even amid the COVID-19 pandemic, and highlights the need for communications about mental health to be designed in ways that increase understanding of the social determinants of mental health. Please refer to the Supplementary Material section to find this article's Community and Social Impact Statement.

Pandemic and prejudice: Revisiting Bogardus’s social distance concept in a time of COVID-19

This study examined when the realistic threat of COVID-19 leads to prejudicial social distancing. American participants reported social distancing preferences from Chinese or Italian people (out-group target) after viewing increasing or decreasing COVID-19 case numbers (threat level) in China or Italy (threat relevance). On the Bogardus Social Distance Scale, there was support for a disease avoidance hypothesis: greater social distancing preferences were expressed under higher than under lower relevant threats. Responses on a bespoke COVID-19 Social Distance Scale, however, supported an a priori prejudice hypothesis: greater social distancing preferences were expressed toward a Chinese than toward an Italian out-group. Moreover, responses on a separate bespoke Modern Social Distance Scale supported a complex prejudice hypothesis: greater social distancing preferences were expressed toward Chinese than toward Italian out-groups under higher than under lower threat, regardless of threat relevance. These findings suggest that the threat of COVID-19 may enable prejudice expression accompanied by the rationale of disease avoidance. [ FROM AUTHOR]