Mind Media Awards: A Review of the New Media Nominees

Posted Friday 21 October 2011

This guest blog is part of our series on the Mind Media Awards. I've long had an interest in how new/ social media can be used to promote constructive dialogue between those who use and work in mental health services, so I was very pleased to be asked to review the New Media nominees for the upcoming Mind Media Awards.

Those up for an award, in no particular order, are as follows.

The Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM) is aimed at young men, the demographic most at risk of death by suicide. Among other things, they aim to break the taboo of young men talking about their feelings. It combines a wonderfully opinionated blog (taking to task Christina Odone and Morrissey, among others, for their ill-judged comments on mental health) with advice and campaigning. I especially liked the sleek and eye-catching web design, which makes it easy and enjoyable to browse and explore the content.

Dawn Willis is a campaigner and activist whose blog is devoted to "sharing the news and views of the mentally wealthy". As well as her own personal accounts and poetry, she also shares an impressively-prolific stream of mental health stories from around the web. As is increasingly the case in social media, the boundaries between platforms (blogs, Facebook, Twitter etc) are quite fluid, and Willis' blog titles tend to be hastagged so that they can be found easily on Twitter.

Two years ago Rebecca Brown started vlogging about Trichotillomania - the compulsion to pull out one's own hair - using a brisk video editing style that complements the honesty and wit of her accounts. Brown is an engaging and likeable spokesperson for this little-known and often poorly-understood condition. Her list of hurtful responses is particularly to be recommended, and I never thought I'd be so incredibly moved by a video about wigs.

If you've finished playing Angry Birds on your phone, then you could move on to the Super Me website, which provides a series of games to play while exploring themes of happiness and personal development. The site also has quizzes, videos (including celebrity appearances by the likes of Pixie Lott) and other diversions to entertain you while promoting the theme of a happier life.

There's now a large number of excellent blogs providing first-person accounts of mental illness. One of the most popular is Pandora's Confessions of a Serial Insomniac. Pandora writes with eloquence and humour about her condition and her treatment. Along the way she explodes a few myths about borderline personality disorder - that people with BPD are bad people, that they can't form loving relationships, that they don't benefit from therapy, that (as her recent change of diagnosis refutes) they don't change or recover. Her ongoing account of psychotherapy is fascinating and genuinely insightful.

I'll refrain from saying who I think should win. Instead, I'd encourage readers to browse all these sites for a worthy snapshot of the continually-evolving ways that new/social media can be used to talk about mental health.

Zarathustra trained as a mental health nurse and works in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS). Formerly the editor of the Mental Nurse blog, he now co-edits The Not So Big Society.

The Mind Media Awards will be held on 28 November 2011. The awards celebrate the best portrayals and reporting of mental health problems in the media. Read the rest of the blogs in this series.

All views expressed are in a personal capacity and not necessarily the views of his employer.

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1 Comment

• Kate replied on 22 Oct 2011 at 15:25

  Good review, I've been really impressed by all these entries though- I must admit!- I have a particular favourite :o) I wish all of the nominees well and many congrats to all for being short listed, a great achievement.

  Best wishes
  Kate