Tietjen, Pia (2020) Mental illness in entertainment programs: How may the portrayal of mental illness in TV Series affect adolescent viewer’s behaviours and attitudes? Bachelor, Social Sciences.
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Abstract
The aim of this thesis is to investigate how the portrayal of mental illness in TV Series may influence the behaviours and attitudes of adolescents. Media effect theories are used to explain how viewers can be influenced by TV Series, specifically taking the impact of individual differences in the viewer and content properties of TV Series into consideration. The potential psychological processes occuring in adolescent viewers are outlined and applied to TV Series which depict characters with mental illness. The TV Series Skins will be used as an example throughout. Here, the portrayed protagonists engage in dysfunctional behaviours and attitudes. The analysis of the processes behind media effect demonstrates that the way characters and their behaviours are portrayed plays an important role to estimate the effect on behaviours and attitudes. This research shows how overly dramatic and sensational portrayals of characters with mental illness might have unintended consequences, such as the imitation and learning of dysfunctional behaviours and attitudes by adolescents. Finally, possible guidelines for the portrayal of mental illness in TV Series targeted at adolescents are discussed.
| Type: | Thesis (Bachelor) |
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| Major: | Social Sciences |
| Supervisor: | Ruiter, de, N |
| Datum van aanlevering: | 29 Jun 2020 11:16 |
| Last modified: | 29 Jun 2020 11:16 |
| URI: | http://ucg.studenttheses.ub.rug.nl/id/eprint/41 |
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