{"id":4251,"date":"2018-05-31T09:10:53","date_gmt":"2018-05-31T09:10:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dementes.programate.pe\/?p=4251"},"modified":"2026-07-09T20:52:20","modified_gmt":"2026-07-09T20:52:20","slug":"el-rol-de-los-medios-de-comunicacion-en-la-construccion-del-estigma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dementes.programate.pe\/en\/2018\/05\/31\/el-rol-de-los-medios-de-comunicacion-en-la-construccion-del-estigma\/","title":{"rendered":"The role of the media in the construction of stigma"},"content":{"rendered":"

The media play a key role in helping society learn about and stay informed<\/strong><\/span> on a wide range of issues that do not always receive the attention they deserve, not only from the general public but also from political leaders in every country.<\/p>\n

Over the past month, cases of femicide and reports of violence against women have increased, with these crimes dominating television screens and newspaper front pages. Many media outlets and political leaders responded by stating that mental health in Peru should be declared a national emergency, directly linking the problem of violence to mental health<\/span><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Ideally, our country's mental health situation should be highlighted for more objective reasons, such as increasing the extremely limited percentage of the national budget allocated to mental healthcare, protecting the human rights<\/span><\/strong> of people living in psychiatric hospitals, or creating better opportunities for development<\/span><\/strong> for those living with mental health conditions in a country like ours, among many other important issues.<\/p>\n

However, rather than encouraging this kind of discussion, many articles published by our media demonize people with lived experiences of mental health conditions<\/span><\/strong>, suggesting that they are far more likely to commit criminal acts. Another journalistic approach that leaves much to be desired is the reporting of suicides. Many media outlets even broadcast explicit videos of people taking their own lives, an extremely cruel and deplorable practice that only fuels sensationalism.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, this type of reporting only reinforces the stigma surrounding mental health, increasing discrimination and spreading misinformation among the public<\/span><\/strong>. If seeking professional help leads to someone being labeled as a potential criminal simply because they received a diagnosis, fewer and fewer people will be willing to seek support. Likewise, when the media claim that someone committed an act of violence because of a \"mental illness,\" they ignore the real causes behind these acts. These platforms could instead be used to provide accurate information about mental health and its current situation in the country, offer prevention and mental health promotion recommendations, and much more. The media should become an ally in the fight against stigma and encourage more people to take care of their mental health<\/span><\/strong>, rather than reinforcing taboos and shame that cause significant harm to public health in our country.<\/p>\n

Declaring mental health a national emergency would indeed be an excellent idea\u2014but for reasons such as the country's limited capacity to provide mental healthcare, the lack of social and employment opportunities for people in recovery, the insufficient government funding allocated to mental health services, among many other pressing issues, rather than based on inaccurate claims that only reinforce the harmful association between mental health, violence, and crime.<\/p>\n

Read more articles by Lorena on her personal blog by clicking here<\/strong><\/a>.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Edited by: Lucero Andaluz Llerena<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Los abordajes period\u00edsticos de la salud mental suelen contribuir al estigma antes que promover pr\u00e1cticas de promoci\u00f3n y prevenci\u00f3n. Aqu\u00ed te contamos por qu\u00e9.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":6580,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[23],"class_list":["post-4251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion","tag-articulos-noticias"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dementes.programate.pe\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dementes.programate.pe\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dementes.programate.pe\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dementes.programate.pe\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dementes.programate.pe\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4251"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/dementes.programate.pe\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4251\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6582,"href":"https:\/\/dementes.programate.pe\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4251\/revisions\/6582"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dementes.programate.pe\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dementes.programate.pe\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dementes.programate.pe\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dementes.programate.pe\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}