“It’s More than Sadness”: The Discursive Construction of Depression on Australian Mental Health Websites

Abstract

Depression has been the subject of increased awareness and concern in Australia in recent decades. Whilst previous studies have examined the discursive construction of depression in the mass media and in government policies, there is a lack of research into how depression is constructed on mental health websites, which are an influential source of information frequently accessed by the public. In this study, a discourse analytic approach informed by critical discursive psychology was employed to analyse the informational content of eight major Australian mental health websites concerning depression. Analysis focused on identifying interpretive repertoires used to talk about depression, the associated subject positions they made available and how they negotiated any ideological dilemmas around conflicting constructions of depression. Four interpretive repertoires were identified in the data – a biomedical, a self-optimization, a normal-natural and a societal-structural repertoire of understanding depression. The biomedical and self-optimization repertoires were predominant, and constructed depression as an illness within an individual occurring as a result of a biological or psychological deficit. The recommended response was for individuals to seek treatment or education from professionals. It is argued that this way of understanding depression is particularly compatible with neoliberal ideology in that the problem is located within the individual rather than with society, and individuals may be positioned as responsible for managing their own mental health, under the guidance of experts. The implications for individuals and societies of understanding depression in this way, and not in alternative ways, are discussed.