| Depressive disorder, which is known as the "cold for heart", was more and more mentioned in recent years. Based on the field of health communication, this paper adopting content analysis method, text analysis and other research methods, analyze relating depression reports of four representative newspapers. Through comparing the media image of depression patients present by media and that by patients themselves, the dissertation aims at revealing the characteristics of media reports on issues related to depression and the aspects need to be improved.This paper found that, newspapers in our country haven’t attached adequate attention to the issue of depression for the current stage. Reports on depression issues and patients are mainly event-oriented with the lack of frequent attention. Meanwhile, the partiality of media toward the type of report and the processing of information sources will have impacts on the formation of people’s integrated and scientific knowledge about the depression. It may even deepen the audience’s misunderstanding and bias upon the disease and patients. Through the text analysis on the typical news reports and the summary on the media reports on depression, this paper reach a conclusion that Traditional media seem not to get rid of bias when they construct the reports on depressed patients and depressive disorder. In addition, the explanation on causation is too simple and vague; the evaluations on the significance tend to be negative; the measures suggested are absent and weak. Besides, compared to the onefold, negative and general image presented by traditional media, depressed patients themselves show a more detailed, diverse and positive image. In summary, the stigmatization of media image of depressed patients is obvious. The depressed patients still bear the negative label, which is hardly removed. Therefore, there are still a bunch of problems in the traditional media in health communication area, which needs to be improved urgently. |
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