REPRESENTACIONES DISCURSIVAS E IMAGINARIO DE LA SALUD MENTAL EN LA PRENSA CHILENA (2018-2019)

Resumen

This article characterizes the social imaginary of mental health represented in the Chilean press, based onthe content analysis of a representative sample of journalistic texts published in newspapers, radio, televisionand websites with local and national coverage during 12 months (second semester of 2018 and first semesterof 2019). Among other things, this analysis allowed us to notice that mental health is a topic treated mainlyfrom current affairs sections; that there is little use of testimonial sources, and that journalists prefer to report on mental health topics through a very technical and depersonalized perspective. Starting from this, it is suggested that the imaginary, at least from its identity dimension, can be described through the notion of suffering and particular otherness. This means that, in general terms, the discursive representations of mental health in the press are based on the vision of people outside the speaker’s reality, who are passivevictims of a condition from which they cannot escape, and whose reality is distant to the collectiveexperience.