PTSD in the News: Media Framing, Stigma, and Myths About Mental Illness

Abstract

News media are an important source of information about mental health. The present study examined how 16 news organizations in the United States portrayed Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in 880 posts on the social media platform Twitter between 2013 and 2021. Coders examined the frequency with which news organizations employed stigmatizing and counter-stigmatizing frames to communicate news about PTSD. Journalists often stigmatized PTSD, associating the condition with military veterans and violence. Less common, but still present, were frames in which readers received educational information about PTSD or encountered someone affected by PTSD. Practical and theoretical implications are discussed.