Investigating Mental Health as a Transnational Health Issue: The Reporting of Mental Health in Brunei Darussalam and Malaysia

Abstract

Mental health has been recognised as a significant public health issue by governments all over the world. In the midst of this transnational health crisis, the media are widely regarded as playing a crucial role in mitigating this serious issue. However, studies have shown that negative views regarding mental health issues were often overrepresented in the news media. More recent studies have reported a more positive trend that attempt to destigmatise mental illness. Most of these studies are based in the West with fewer studies conducted in Asian and Muslim societies. In this chapter, English and Malay language news reports from Brunei and Malaysia will be analysed in order to investigate how mental health issues are reported in these societies. This chapter will also examine to what extent newspapers in these two countries attempt to destigmatise mental health problems. The media texts will be analysed using content analysis and discourse analysis. The findings reveal that the authority-order journalistic norm of reporting adopted by the newspapers investigated has produced news articles on mental health that are generally positive in tone. However, the quality of mental health reporting can be improved further by greater adherence to international guidelines on mental health reporting.