Chloe Hart Capstone

In my Capstone I wanted to create a form of media that got people to look into mental health stigma. My overall goal was to give people an opportunity to look at the stigma around mental health without criticising people for the beliefs they may have previously had.  I personally believe that ignorance can’t be fought with anger and must be fought instead with the correct information. I chose to share this information in a short documentary titled “We As A Society.”  I chose to do my Capstone in a documentary-like format because it allowed me use people's experiences directly to impact the people watching. It also gave me an opportunity to share it more freely without charge.

Blogger, G. (2015, October 27). Learning With Documentary Films: Strategies to Engage Students. Retrieved from https://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/global_learning/2015/10/learning_with_documentary_films_strategies_to_engage_students.html


This article helped me to start on the project because I wasn’t originally sure what kind of form of media would be the best to present my information. After a lot of deciding and a few rejected ideas I decided on a form of film because of this article. While it’s not a fact based article, it was helpful in what I needed it for. It gave me the idea and showed me why it might actually be better for the final product that I wanted, which was to engage both younger and older people and teaching them about mental health stigma in an entertaining way.


Corrigan, P. (n.d.). How Stigma Interferes With Mental Health Care. Retrieved January 24, 2018, from http://www.academia.cat/files/425-8237-DOCUMENTHowstigmainterfereswithmentalhealthcare.pdf


This article explains the problems with having a stigma around mental health. Unlike a lot of other articles on similar topics it both has an easy to understand photo that explains the point and explains the information in a professional way. This article is very helpful because it not only explains the immediate problems but also the long term impact of having mental health so stigmatised in society. This is something that I want my documentary to have an impact towards. This document is also fact oriented rather than opinion based, using statistics to prove its points rather than other forms of persuasion.  


Corrigan, Patrick. (2005). On the stigma of mental illness: Practical strategies for research and social change.. 10.1037/10887-000.


This book explains both the problem that society places upon people with mental health and how to start to reverse this stigma. It is an analysis on how to deal with both self stigma and societal expectation. Exploring both the causes along with the impacts everyday people make. While it backs up its information with facts and scientific studies, it does this in an easy to understand way similar to how I want my documentary to be laid out. Having a book like this can start to be a good template for how to gather the information im presenting.      




C. (n.d.). What is Stigma? Retrieved January 24, 2019, from https://www.changeyourmindni.org/mental-health-and-stigma/what-is-stigma


Understanding the problem is the key to being able to fix it. This article explains the problems with stigma in an easy to digest way. Unlike other more complicated articles, this is a quick summary about what a stigma is defined as and real examples. While this article is less helpful for the documentary itself, it was a good starting point to help me understand the articles, books, and videos that have more complex and in depth information that will eventually be synthesized down to the documentary. It was also helpful between it gave me an example of what how to show the information in a way that people will be willing to pay attention.


Don't call me crazy, call me mad. (2016, July 22). Retrieved from https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/podcasts-and-videos/dont-call-me-crazy-call-me-mad


The man being interviewed for this video is a man that has dealt with mental illness all of his life. He was diagnosed with schizophrenia. It's an interesting experience that a lot of people never get or even begin to understand, so while I’m not focusing on schizophrenia as my entire project it can be very helpful to understand other people's experience for many reasons. This video also lets me see what it looks like both video wise and in terms of what kind of questions and things I should include in my own interviews.  



Ottati, V., Bodenhausen, G. V., & Newman, L. S. (n.d.). Social psychological models of mental illness stigma. Retrieved January 24, 2019, from http://faculty.wcas.northwestern.edu/bodenhausen/OBN05.pdf


This article explains the problems with mental illness being stigmatised. Unlike previous articles, this one further explains on why people believe these different negative stereotypes.  This is important because in order to make an impact on people, you have to understand both what they believe and why they might hold this theory. This can further deepen my understanding of both stigma and the impact that is has on everyday people, but also the impact it has on society as a whole, even going as far as explaining the difference between stigma and discrimination and how they are interconnected but not interchangeable.



U. (n.d.). Understanding the impact of stigma on people with mental illness. US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health. Retrieved January 24, 2019, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1489832/


The information present in this article further explains the problems that plague society from the mental health perspective. This article however goes further into depth about the social aspects of the stigma, rather than the impact of the social basis on a single person, as other articles have done. It also goes further into depth about the difference between stereotypes and stigma.  This article also further supports the belief that education can help people's understanding of problems and how to fix them and states studies that further push this argument about how to further fix this issue.


TED. (n.d.). 12 talks on the struggle of mental health. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/playlists/175/the_struggle_of_mental_health


These talks are helping to understand other people's perspective. While the scientific information is very helpful, this playlist also has videos that explain how to start a conversation about something like this, which is very important when you are talking about an important but often personal topic such as someone’s mental health.  I plan on trying to go into detail with a few peoples stories and how that has impacted that and its important that I understand how to do it right since a topic like this is often portrayed wrong and I don’t want to perpetuate bad stereotypes.



Trice, A. (2013, September 11). A Crash Course In Adobe Premiere Pro CC. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5TdzEe5TjI

While this isn’t information pertaining the the documentary itself, it allows me to better understand how to use the resources available to me through the SLA community. I don’t have as much experience with video editing as a whole and using this video, coupled with help from my fellow students and some of the video teachers, I should be able to learn a lot. This should help me get a kickstart on learning a new skill such as this. Learning this skill is a vital part of my project and the primary learning experience of the project.


Wellness, P. S. (2018, March 12). Teen Health: Mental Health. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1i9OktVsTWo


This video is a quick and simple explanation of teen mental health and why it matters. It's helpful as shorter version of what I want my documentary to look like. This allows me to better picture and write out the entire product. It is also a good source of a lot of statistics that draw your attention, which are important to try and get people listening to what you have to say, which I personally believe is the hardest part of creating a form of media. It's different than the other articles because of the video aspect. It's not just information, but information in a way I can emulate and learn from.


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