“No wonder I went into the wall” : How burnout narratives are constructed in Finnish and Swedish media

Abstract: This thesis aims to contribute to the existing literacy of how mental health is portrayed in news media. The topic has been of interest to many scholars, mostly focusing on depression, schizophrenia, and mental health in general. In the past couple of years, a new phenomenon has gained attention and space in media: burnout, that is, a state of mental and physical exhaustion caused by chronic, usually work-related, stress. However, burnout has so far only been included in media studies as one aspect among many, thus arguing for its worth as a specific subject of a study. Using the method of critical narrative analysis, this thesis delves into news articles published in Swedish and Finnish mainstream media, investigating the personal stories of individuals who had experienced burnout and asking whose stories are getting told in media as well as how these influence the public image of burnout. Three common narratives and two core discourses were identified in the data: ‘the narrative of a lesson learned’, ‘the narrative as an exemplum’, ‘the conversion narrative’, ‘discourse of shame and stigma’, and ‘discourse of the individual in charge of their own destiny’. These portray burnout as a life-altering experience, where it is the individual who is expected to make the necessary changes in their life, rather than critiquing the working culture. Furthermore, the narratives exclusively portray the burnout experiencers as white and middle-class, thus raising a question of relatability. Since burnout has not been extensively studied as a topic of its own before, this thesis provides a starting point, but further research with different geographical focus and with different methods is needed to form a more complete picture of how burnout narratives are constructed in media.