Reporting Mental Illness in China (Routledge/Asian Studies Association of Australia ASAA East Asian Series)

This book examines how Chinese-language newspapers across greater China report on severe mental illness, and why they do so in the ways they do, given that reporting in local newspapers can strongly influence how Chinese readers view the illness.

By assessing how the reporting in three leading broadsheet newspapers from mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan constructs the illness, the book considers how the distinct social and political histories of the three culturally Chinese communities shape the reporting, and whether it bears out or contests the intense stigma against the illness that prevails locally. The findings can usefully encourage and inform attempts to humanise, include, and empower those with a severe mental illness across greater China and the global Chinese diaspora.

Employing a well-tested, transparent discourse analytic approach, the book also includes numerous Chinese-English bilingual news report extracts to illustrate its claims. As such, Reporting Mental Illness in China will be of interest to sinologists, discourse analysts, mental health professionals and public health authorities across the globe, especially in places where there are large Chinese-speaking populations.

Guy Ramsay is a senior lecturer in Chinese language and studies at The University of Queensland in Australia. His expertise is discourse analysis in mental illness and related disorders in China and the Chinese diaspora. He published Chinese Stories of Drug Addiction (Routledge) in 2016.