Its no surprise that the media now tends to shape the community in the way that people think. It only depends how influence one is towards what is being shown to them. The bias in certain media organisation is seen but there is a level of respect and ethics towards certain topics before it is published out to the public. The topics are usually sensitive issues such as suicide, grief, mental health and trauma. These topics needs to be very thoroughly checked before being distribute and published to not trigger the community who have been affected by it.
Identification
With sensitive topics being not too commonly reported in the media it is seen to be as both a barrier and great outcome. The main barrier seen to reporting …show more content…
Also with the limitation that it has been reported or even mention in the media, makes it hard for new and upcoming journalists to know what is a proper guideline to write article about the issues. Another note that is important because of the stigma that has been sticking towards suicide, there is a sense of shame to one might experience. A research that was done towards new journalist stated that the new journalists “.. have an awareness of the need to be sensitive when researching and writing publications that cover suicide and mental illness, the results of this study suggest they have less awareness of the specific guidelines promoted by Response Ability.” (Skehan et al, 2006)
One of the major player in giving awareness about this sensitive issues is the government. “Australian federal and state governments have funded and encouraged several public health programmes to raise community awareness about mental health, and particularly depression, to promote well-being.” (McNara, 2012). The campaign has been running well and the acceptance from the public has been well but again, the promotion from the media has not been the best as most of the releases are mostly from the non for profit organisations who are running the …show more content…
“..substance use disorders and untreated mental illness were prominent characteristics among those who took their own lives.” (Christensen, 2013). The most important element is to align these issues into one umbrella where everything is together and includes every possibility of how the issues can occur and trigger in the community.
With events such as Mental Health Week and Month happening, it will educate the community about why there is the need in knowing about the issues and why they are pivotal. Each state in the country should be supported by both the government and non for profit organisations to be able to support those who are in need of services to prevent themselves from getting into the suicidal