Schizophrenia, the biomedical model and media coverage

Abstract

Schizophrenia, marked by significant alterations in the perception of reality and, in many cases, by social and occupational decline, remains an etiological and therapeutic challenge.  Today, research indicates that schizophrenia is a complex condition and that its etiology is multifactorial. However, the biomedical model of mental health, characterized by the idea that mental disorders are brain diseases, often seeks to delimit schizophrenia to its biological aspects, underestimating the influence of the environment. The conception of mental disorders as brain diseases has had an impact on the general population, which, in part, is informed about the subject from scientific dissemination by the traditional media. The objective of the article is to analyze how the causes of schizophrenia have been publicized by the print media. For this purpose, based on a Critical Discourse Analysis, a search was conducted in the digital collection of the three largest Brazilian newspapers, in order to highlight who is invited to talk about schizophrenia and what are the main causal explanations disclosed to the public. The results show a dominance of the biomedical discourse and a focus
on genetic and neurochemical aspects of  schizophrenia.