Mental Illnesses and Social Media (the literature review section of a research project

Research Question:
1. What do the responses of Weibo users in public discussions related to celebrity suicides implicate the general public’s attitude towards depression in the context of Chinese Internet?
  1. The research question aims to figure out how mental health issues, particularly depression, are being discussed on social media platform. In this case, the research project focuses on unpacking Chinese people’s attitudes toward depression by examining posts in regard to four incidents of celebrity suicide.
  2. This study will examine the best strategic approach to address how the indicated cases in the paper serve as examples to demonstrate and inform readers about people’s attitudes toward mental health problems within the context of Chinese culture. Moreover, the study will further explore the role of social media platform (particularly Weibo, Chinese micro-blogging website) in aggravating stigmatization around mental illnesses in the online realm in China.

This research employs content analysis to obtain relevant data to unfold and ascertain the general public’s attitude to depression in China. Content analysis is significant to the study for various reasons. It helps to perceive and group different processes that brought meaning to the subject matter. Furthermore, it aims to help readers comprehend how media coverage on mental health manipulates our cultural beliefs and reinforces stigmatization.

Outline for the Lit Review Section
1. For this literature review section, it focuses on telling a story of how most studies are done in the western cultural context. Those studies are mainly done in the western context instead of the Asian context. Studies are even more rarely done within the Chinese cultural context. Therefore, this research project aims to fill the gap.
2. Even in the West, people have just changed/altered their attitudes in the recent 30 years.
  1. Although people’s attitudes toward mental illnesses are still not accepting, people are more compassionate than before (in the West).
3. The main focus of this project is to unpack the attitudes and how do people discuss about mental illness on social media platform.
  1. To see what Chinese online users think about mental health problems, especially about depression
  2. As noted, it takes time for attitudes to change.

Why it matters in the Chinese cultural context is because “with the identified need for mental health services in the Chinese public, more empirical research on Chinese populations and testing of Western theoretical models must be conducted to advance our understanding of help-seeking among Chinese and to develop intervention strategies that are culturally relevant to specific populations” (Sutton, 2002:132)

Literature Review (term paper requirements set by the professor):
1. This section will include:
  1. Introductory paragraph: This provides the content and overall range of topics that this chapter will discuss, and the order in which you will do so (e.g., First I will discuss….Secondly, I will review, Lastly I will…etc.). Make sure that the way you order the topics that you will discuss in this paragraph, is the way that you order and discuss each topic in the chapter.
  2. Section 1: Where or if applicable, discuss the chronological history and key policies and/or laws that are relevant to your topic. That is, discuss the development of your topic, and the specific contexts where it has been researched.
    1. Brief chronological history of studies/researches on mental health issues, particularly regarding depression
    2. However, those studies are mainly done in the western context instead of Asian context. Studies are rarely done within the Chinese cultural context. Therefore, this research project aims to fill the gap.

Section 2: Relevant dominant theories about or related to the phenomenon that you are investigating, and that keep coming up in the academic sources that you have read. Note, here you have to unpack the key mechanisms that explain how and/or why, and in which contexts, the phenomenon you are investigating happens.

Section 3: Empirical Studies: Review the available empirical studies, and discuss how they support or contradict the theoretical frameworks discussed in section 2.
Section 4: A brief discussion on the informational, theoretical, contextual, and/or methodological limitations of the available literature, and discussion on how your study will address some of these limitations in order to produce new insights/findings. This part should end with the research questions and/or hypotheses that will be addressed, and thus serve as a prelude that logically leads the reader to the next section.

Ways to organize:
1. “Schools of thought.” Divide your literature into different “camps” with different opinions and compare and contrast them. For example, some scholars may argue that teens turn to substance abuse because of peer pressure; others emphasize the role of neighborhood and family.
2. “Different methods.” Divide your literature into different methodological approaches and compare and contrast them. For example, some people have studied teen substance abuse through both survey research and qualitative interviews. These different types of studies have contributed different perspectives.

“Changes in the literature over time.” For example, it used to be that researchers on this topic thought X; over time, other researchers came to accept Y.

“Different themes.” For example, there are three main themes that emerge from this set of authors on teen substance abuse: the role of peers, the role of family, and the consequences for later life.

Reading sources:
1. Several files are attached
2. Two key search words for literature/empirical studies:
  1. Social media and suicide
  2. Mental health attitudes in China
    1. Mental health concerns Chinese Americans — one example could be the attached document named as “Lit source 12,” it talks about cultural and practical barriers to seeking mental health treatment for Chinese Americans

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