Zoe Schoenherr

Introduction[ZS1] 

The ‘Time to Change’ campaign began in 2007. Since its launch the campaign has impacted the lives of millions of people and created “9.6% change - that's an estimated 4.1m people with improved attitudes.” (“time-to-change”, 2018[ZS2] ). The objectives underlying the campaign is twofold. Firstly the campaign aims to change awareness and attitudes surrounding the perception of those with mental health illnesses to reduce stigma and discrimination. The target audience for this part of the campaign is wide spread as it includes anyone within the general public. The second part of the campaign is directed towards the lives of those with existing mental health illnesses with the aim to ….??[ZS3] .

To effect attitude change ‘Time to Change’ has adopted a number of different strategies including running network hubs, time to talk days and creating media campaign[ZS4] s. Although ‘Time to Change’ have conducted survey’s to measure changes in public attitude, it has not looked at the specific causes within the campaign that may have effected this change. In this essay possible underlying causes of attitude change will be discussed from both the perspective of public with and without mental disorders. To do this only one aspect of campaign will be evaluated, the media campaign. In the past the media has played a key role in shaping negative attitudes surrounding mental disorders. Therefore how the media is used to do the very opposite in this campaign will be discussed and how if at all the past will still play a role in effecting this change. To guide this evaluation French and Raven’s power of conformity theory will unpinned this comparative discussion between the types of audience and the effect one single media image from the campaign.