Misrepresented In The Media Essay

Analysis Evaluation The article How Mental Illness is Misrepresented in the Media, written by Kirsten Fawcett, had the main idea of people with a mental illness are not second class citizens, but just typical humans. Along with this, she talks about the way the mainstream media manipulates with the American people’s minds. She disproves many stereotypes that people with mental illness are thought to have. Such as, that “People with mental illnesses are criminals, childish, or not capable of recovering” (Fawcett, 2015) Along with this, the article’s purpose is to portray that the media gives humans a misleading representation on the topic of mental illnesses, while telling the reader that people with mental illnesses are not second class citizens.

The way she did it was a combination of compare and contrast, and listing. What she would do, is start by listing the common stereotypes that people think of when they think of someone with a mental illness. Then she would provide evidence to debunk these well known stereotypes. At first glance, this form of organization seams pointless, but looking back at it, this was a very effective strategy they Fawcett used to get her main purpose across: that people with mental illness are normal humans and not everything the media says can be true. This structure was very well thought out resulting in a smooth effective article. Fawcett thought this one out extensively because not only is it a smooth transition from topics, but it also allows a the evidence to be structured well. For example, shortly after Fawcett presented the stereotype that people with mental illness posses, she would use evidence that contradicted the statement, debunking it from being true. One example of a stereotype would be “People with mental illnesses are criminals or violent.” (Fawcett, 2015) Which would then be contradicted by evidence given by Fawcett that states,”Studies show that not only are individuals with mental illness less likely to commit violent crimes, they’re actually more likely to be victimized.” (Fawcett, 2015) This form of organization goes on throughout the entire