Representation of Mental Illness in Leading Ugandan Daily Newspapers: A Content Analysis

Media are a major purveyor of information about mental health. Recognizing what messages media are disseminating about mental illness, therefore, is a step toward raising mental health literacy in a population. Most research about media coverage of mental illness, however, has taken place in Western nations. Differences in cultural views of mental illness and severely strained mental health-care resources in sub-Saharan African make it likely that media coverage of mental illness there will differ substantially from Western contexts. This study investigated the coverage of mental illness in the two largest circulation newspapers in Uganda: The Monitor and The New Vision. Analysis of the entire contents of every issue of both papers from January 1, 2017 to June 30, 2019 revealed just 53 articles addressing mental illness. Although types of mental illness addressed did not differ greatly from coverage in Western newspapers, causes to which mental illness was attributed included war, poverty, and witchcraft, none of which appears in content analyses in other contexts. Also, different than Western media, most articles were thematically rather than episodically framed, especially in the government-owned paper, and individuals with mental illness themselves were regularly cited.