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Emily Davis

Professor Madruga

ENC 1102

16 September 2019

Research Plan

For my research plan, I am planning on researching how the media

portrays depression. For example, I will be looking at the portrayal of

depression in movies, news outlets, social media posts, etc. Prior knowledge

I have on depression is things like how it effects everyday activities, the

types of thoughts that go into depression, etc. This topic is important to me

because I feel like the media portrays depression in such a negative way and

just brushes it off. Although it is a problem, it is an issue that needs to be

addressed and fixed. As the media continues to cover stories involving

depression, I feel like it is extremely misinterpreted. I feel like this topic

would be important or interesting to the field of writing because it involves a

lot of writing. For example, if movies are produced, the script needs to be

written, a news article needs to be written in the right language as well as

social media posts.

I am very curious to learn about how the media portrays depression

compared to other mental illnesses. For example, if there is a story on

depression, it could easily be brushed off like it is not that big of an issue,
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however, if there is a story about schizophrenia and it talks about the

dangers and how it is such a big illness, there is an issue there. Every

mental illness deserves the same amount of recognition. The questions I am

going to ask myself are things like: How do movies portray depression? How

does the media speak about depression? (Maybe something related to

depression and mass shootings.) Specific questions I would need to ask my

data are the following: Is it an accurate representation of depression? Is

there research to back up the statement? What does the media keep out of

their movies, shows, news, articles to make depression look worse?

Looking into Communities of Practice, the people researching mental

illnesses would all fall into one professional community where they

understand their language and the things being spoken about (Johns, 324).

For example, certain words that psychologists, psychiatrists, and other

mental health professionals understand, many other people will not, just like

when Klass explained how doctors have their own language to keep a barrier

between them in the patient (Klass, 344). However, the media outlets would

be in a separate social community since their level of knowledge on mental

illnesses is not the same as the researchers. In Klass’ article, the patient and

other people around the medical field do not know the language until they

are actually involved in that profession (Klass, 345) When answering the

question, I hope to inform people of if the media is reliant or not. Many false

stories and movies have been released in relation to mental illnesses and I
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feel that they are not portrayed in the correct way as well as being spoken

about in such a negative way. My plan for my research involves looking at

movies, news stories, social media articles as well as current events. I would

like to reach out to others; however, I know it is a sensitive subject and

many people will not feel comfortable. If surveying people does not work

out, I will use personal experience to help my research. Personally, I have

battled with mental illness and being able to compare my personal

experiences with how mental illness is shown on the media, will help come

to some sort of answer on whether or not the media is a reliable source for

information on mental illnesses.

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Works Cited:

Johns, Ann M. Discourse Communities and Communities of Practice.

Cambridge University Press, 1997.

Klass, Perri. “Learning the Language.” Composing Knowledge:

Readings for College Writers. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2007. Print.