REPRESENTATION OF MENTAL ILLNESS: AN EXAMINATION OF MOVIES AND PROFESSIONAL PERSPECTIVES IN NIGERIA

This thesis explores the social implication of representations of mental health issues in movies produced in Nigeria, by using Critical Discourse Analysis as a mode of textual analysis within the social constructionist tradition, while also employing narrative theories as a framework for the interpretation of data. The perceptions of movie producers and mental health care providers on media representations of mental health issues were compared with results of a content analysis of ten Nigerian movies, by focusing on the analysis of emergent themes and narratives in the data. To explore the extent to which media, particularly fictional narratives, convey mental health issues in Nigeria, a unique coding scheme was developed for content analysis of data from movies and interviews, which brought to light a variety of discourses on the perceptions of movie producers and mental health professionals on issues bordering on stigma, causes and forms of treatment associated with mental illness. The themes produced in the movies chosen (of media representations of mental illness) showed that alternative modes of causal explanation for the problem predominated over psychiatric modes, confirming existing studies. Central to this study is the identification and analysis of the causes, treatment and stigma attached to mental illness in movies, with a particular focus on the social implication of these representations. This study concludes that movies represent modern psychiatry only poorly; that the need to produce sellable media messages impacts on the construction and on-screen portrayal of mental health issues; and that perceptions of violence portrayed in ‘Western’ media appear different from representations of violence in Nigerian media.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

PhD

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

Doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

De Montfort University

Year dc:date.issued

2017

Author dc:creator

• Aroyewun – Adekomaiya, Khadijah

Licence

• https://dora.dmu.ac.uk/bitstreams/b79c5ac9-2158-48d8-828b-58edeacdca97/download