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Updated: Aug 8, 2026

A Strategy to Identify de Novo Mutations in Common Disorders such as Autism and Schizophrenia
Published on: June 15, 2011
[Schizophrenia in the "New Zurich Newspaper". A media analysis]
U Hoffmann-Richter1, B Alder, V Hinselmann
1Psychiatrische Universitätsklinik, Basel.
Abstract:
Social representations of mental illness and psychiatry are largely influenced by mass media. This study explores the use of the term "schizophrenia" in the Swiss newspaper NZZ in 1994 and 1995, the text of which is available on CD-ROM. In 31% of the cases the term is used figuratively, i.e. as a metaphor. When used as a name of an illness, it reflects contradictory connotations: schizophrenics as mentally ill offenders or criminal in the local columns, schizophrenics featuring as creative writers or artists in the cultural columns. Information on schizophrenia as disease is rare. If it does occur, reporting is rather sociopsychiatric than neurobiological.
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