The media representation of persons with psychosocial disabilities

On the 1st of August, 2014, a man pushed a woman under the tram rails and she died. This event attracted a high level of media coverage, and the police news generated wide social interest. In our case study, we present the news published in connection with “the Combino tram murder” as an illustration of the media representation of patients diagnosed with psychiatric diseases. People diagnosed with psychiatric diseases are typically invisible in the media. They usually become actors when they commit a violent crime. They are talked about without they being present, their voices are usually not heard. As a result, mass media confuses people diagnosed with psychiatric illness with criminals, increasing fear of the “insane” in society. In this case, however, we do not get a one-dimensional image of a mad killer, but we learn about a person’s life story from multiple perspectives.