How did tabloids feel about closing the asylums?
Sidi studies UK tabloid coverage 1980–1995 of psychiatry after the madhouses: community care beside a long history of institutional ‘mad’ treatment, Powell’s 1961 water-towers speech, and scare-mongering headlines about violence.
Source
After the madhouses: the emotional politics of psychiatry and community care in the UK tabloid press 1980-1995
Study at a glance
- Design
- Qualitative / archival — Analysis of UK tabloid emotional politics of psychiatry and community care, 1980–1995
- N
- Press corpus study spanning 1980–1995; not a survey sample N
- Population
- UK tabloid coverage of deinstitutionalisation and community psychiatric care
- Outcome
- Scare-mongering violence frames alongside financial/disillusionment drivers of discharge
Structured fields used in claim comparison tables when every cited study has a complete layer.
What they did
The article sets tabloid emotional politics against deinstitutionalisation driven (in contemporary critique) by financial expediency and disillusionment, citing Powell 1961 and headlines such as ‘Sick Killers Toll of Misery’.
What they found
Institutional treatment of the ‘mad’ always had a decentralised counterpart. Asylums and long-stay wards were the foil. Tabloids used scare-mongering violence headlines. Money and disillusionment are named as drivers of discharge.
The limits
What it doesn't show
This is press history, not a clinical outcome study of community care. Headlines are sources, not prevalence data.
Key terms
- After the madhouses
- The post-asylum era of UK community psychiatric care.
- Tabloid emotional politics
- How popular papers staged fear, pity, and blame around discharged patients, 1980–95.
- Water-towers speech
- Enoch Powell’s 1961 speech on asylums, a landmark of planned rundown.
- Deinstitutionalisation
- Discharge from asylums/long-stay wards, here tied to money and disillusionment as well as policy.
Flashcards
Research intelligence for this paper
See its role on concept claims, tensions it is part of, placement history, and related discoveries.
Quiz yourself
Press studied?
Common questions
Sources?
UK tabloid press, 1980–1995.
Powell?
1961 ‘water towers’ speech on asylums.
Tabloid tone?
Scare-mongering violence headlines.
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