Antidepressants and Brazilian journalism: a brief history of a cyclothymic relationship (1990-2010)

Abstract

The paper investigates, in a historicizing perspective, the media approach of antidepressant medications. We employed empirical research with the analysis of 863 subjects of the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo and Veja magazine from the 1970s to the 2010s. We focused on the intricate relationship between journalism and antidepressants from the 90s, when depression acquires social relevance in the wake of the advent of descriptive psychopathology, the success of the neurosciences and the advancement of the pharmaceutical industry. We describe the construction of discursive media related to antidepressants as cyclothymic: except for a brief period in the 1990s, the vehicles analyzed not simply ratify the dictates of the pharmaceutical industry, they select different information according to the media assumptions of newness and conflict without, however, give visibility to the intricacies of this controversial therapy.