News media depictions of people with mental disabilities in Indonesia: A corpus-assisted discourse study

The media plays a pivotal role in shaping public perceptions, often contributing to the reinforcement of stereotypes and the dissemination of misinformation about people with mental disabilities. This article aims to reveal how individuals with mental disabilities have been linguistically and discursively constructed by Indonesian online news media over a ten-year period, from 2011 to 2020. Employing an interdisciplinary approach, the study integrates corpus-assisted discourse studies (CADS) and van Leeuwen’s social actor network framework (van Leeuwen 2008), alongside news media models of disability drawn from Disability Studies. The findings reveal a dominant medicalised framing, portraying people with mental disabilities as patients or sufferers, and also a recurring tendency to link them to crime in sensationalised narratives. These representations are linguistically realised through functionalisations , frequent collocates related to medical terms, and passivation that backgrounds agency, and discursively sustained through role allocations that depict them predominantly as passive patients or as active perpetrators. These portrayals reinforce harmful stereotypes, emphasising danger and deviance, while underrepresenting perspectives that highlight discrimination, stigma, or structural barriers. The analysis suggests that this media coverage is likely to be shaped by commercial imperatives and news values that prioritise profit over progressive reporting. Consequently, narratives aligned with civil rights or social models of disability are marginalised. The persistence of these portrayals contributes to public stigma, limits access to support, and discourages help-seeking behaviour among individuals with mental disorders. The article advocates for more balanced journalism that amplifies real lived experiences, systemic issues, and recovery stories to promote inclusive and equitable representations of mental health in the media.