"Call him what he is—a cannibal killer": Representations of mental illness in Canadian news and social media through a case study of the Greyhound bus attack

Abstract

Using the 2008 Greyhound bus attack in Manitoba, Canada, as a case study, this project explores representations of mental illness in the media. The study analyzes news coverage of the case from 2008 to 2017, public Facebook comments on stories posted via news agencies’ Facebook profiles, and in-depth interviews with key stakeholders, professionals, and subject matter experts. The data were analyzed through a combined and updated theoretical framework of C. Wright Mills’ sociological imagination and Stuart Hall’s encoding/decoding model of communication, and an interpretivist approach to data analysis using sociological discourse analysis. The findings of this project demonstrated significant gaps in public understanding of illnesses such as schizophrenia, particularly when connected to ongoing coverage of violent crimes in news media. Other major themes found in the analysis included fear of the dangerous/monstrous Other and a mistrust of public institutions such as the health care system and government. Critically, the levels of public mistrust identified in this project led to the development of what I present as “the trust paradox,” wherein public commenters expressed both outrage at the perceived failings of social systems to maintain public safety, and a demand that such systems continue to be utilized as a means of control and surveillance. This project demonstrates that extreme cases such as the Greyhound bus attack still portray mental illness as dangerous in media narratives. This research adds to the current discourse on representations of mental illness in the media by providing an update on previous studies, suggestions for future areas of inquiry for social media research, and new target areas for consideration in public awareness and anti-stigma campaigns.