Constructing Madness: Contemporary Ghana’da Ruhsal Hastalığın Medya Anlatıları ve Kamusal Algıları, c. 2000–2025

Öz

Bu çalışma, Gana’da haber medyasının ruhsal hastalığa ilişkin kamusal algıları, medyanın görünürlüğünün arttığı ve ruh sağlığı alanında kısmi reformların gerçekleştiği bir dönemde nasıl yansıttığını incelemektedir. Stuart Hall’un inşacı temsil kuramı ile sağlık beşerî bilimleri literatüründen yararlanan çalışma, Gana’daki haber medyasının ruhsal hastalığı yalnızca aktaran bir araç olmadığını; aynı zamanda tehlike, ahlak, maneviyat ve toplumsal düzensizlik gibi anlamların üretildiği ve yeniden dolaşıma sokulduğu bir anlatı alanı olarak işlev gördüğünü ileri sürmektedir. 2012 Ruh Sağlığı Yasası gibi reform girişimlerine rağmen medya temsilleri, biyomedikal ve hak temelli söylemleri çoğu zaman yerleşik ahlaki ve manevi yorumların içerisine eklemlemektedir. Seçilmiş medya içeriklerine yönelik nitel yorumlayıcı analizden hareketle makale, süreklilik gösteren anlatı çerçevelerinin Gana’da ruhsal hastalığa dair kamusal anlamlandırmaları nasıl şekillendirdiğini ortaya koymaktadır. Çalışma, kurumsal reformlara rağmen medya söylemlerinin biyomedikal yaklaşımları uzun süredir varlığını koruyan ahlaki ve manevi yorumlarla birlikte yeniden ürettiğini, bunun da politika değişimlerinin dönüştürücü etkisini sınırladığını savunmaktadır. Gazeteciliği hem anlatısal bir dolayımlama biçimi hem de damgalama ile empati arasındaki ilişkilerin müzakere edildiği bir alan olarak ele alan makale, yalnızca hukuki ve kurumsal reformların damgalamayı azaltmak için yeterli olmadığını göstermektedir. Bu nedenle ruhsal hastalığa ilişkin baskın anlatı kalıplarında da dönüşüm gerekmektedir. Çalışma, damgalamayı yalnızca politika uygulamaları ya da kamuoyu farkındalığıyla açıklanabilecek bir sorun olarak değil, gündelik anlamlandırma süreçlerine yerleşmiş anlatısal bir mesele olarak kavramsallaştırarak Afrika ruh sağlığı literatürüne katkı sunmaktadır.

Anahtar Kelimeler

• Gana
• medya
• ruhsal hastalık
• gazetecilik
• damgalama
• 2012 Ruh Sağlığı Yasası

Constructing Madness: Media Narratives and Public Understandings of Mental Illness in Contemporary Ghana, c. 2000–2025

Öz

This article examines how Ghanaian news media reflect public understandings of mental illness during a period of growing media visibility and partial mental health reform. Drawing on Stuart Hall’s constructionist theory of representation and insights from the health humanities, it argues that news media in Ghana do not simply report on mental illness but function as a stabilizing narrative space through which meanings about danger, morality, spirituality, and disorder are produced and sustained. Rather than reshaping public attitudes in line with reforms such as the Mental Health Act of 2012, media representations often absorb biomedical and rights-based language into longstanding moral and spiritual frameworks. Using qualitative interpretive analysis of selected media coverage, this article demonstrates how persistent narrative frames shape public understandings of mental illness in Ghana. It argues that despite institutional reforms, media representations continue to embed biomedical discourse within longstanding moral and spiritual interpretations, thereby limiting the transformative impact of policy change. By approaching journalism as a form of narrative mediation and as a site where both stigma and empathy are negotiated, the article shows that legal and policy reforms alone remain insufficient to reduce stigma in the absence of broader shifts in narrative representation. The study contributes to African mental health scholarship by conceptualizing stigma not only as a problem of policy implementation or public awareness but also as a narrative issue embedded within everyday processes of meaning-making.

Anahtar Kelimeler

• Ghana
• media
• mental illness
• journalism
• stigma
• Mental Health Act 2012

Kaynakça

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