What is the Role of Intertextuality in Media Depictions of Mental Illness? Implications for Forensic Psychiatry

This article offers a practical account of intertextuality and its impacts on media portrayals of violent crimes by persons living with a mental illness. We analysed interrelationships across reports, on the same page, of violent crimes by two different individuals diagnosed with a mental illness. The materials were drawn from a practically complete, prospectively collected national sample of print materials (600 items). Reports utilised complementary understandings of mental illness as either pushing a competent person out of control or as associated with routine incompetence and violent criminal action. Three themes relevant to forensic psychiatrists were identified: patient rights versus public safety; community members active or passive; and mental illness and agency. Photographs, texts and page layouts, rendered each depiction more threatening, enhancing perceived threats of violence and crime associated with mental illness. An appreciation of such interrelationships would appear to be necessary for more effective engagement with lay understandings of mental illnesses and media reports of violent crimes.