Examine How Newspapers Construct Mental Health Awareness Campaigns Using Corpus Linguistics, Critical Discourse Analysis, and Marxist Theory of Power and Ideology

Abstract

This study uses Marxist Theory of Power and Ideology, Fairclough's Three-Dimensional Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), and Corpus Linguistics (AntConc) to investigate how newspapers create mental health awareness campaigns. Finding the language patterns, discursive techniques, and underlying ideological goals that influence public perceptions of mental health in mainstream print media is the aim of the study. The study contends that newspapers are essential in either opposing or perpetuating stigma, neoliberal responsibility, and class-based inequality against the backdrop of growing global and Pakistani mental health problems. The theoretical framework combines ideological criticism, sociodiscursive interpretation, and corpus-driven evidence. Data were gathered from a corpus of 150–200 stories that appeared in prominent Pakistani newspapers (Dawn, The News International, and Express Tribune) between 2020 and 2025. Fairclough's textual, discursive, and social levels were utilized to analyze the keywords, collocations, and semantic prosodies associated with mental health that were found using AntConc. The results show that although structural problems like inequality and underfunded services are minimized, awareness efforts are frequently orientated around productivity, self-management, and individual resilience. To encourage true mental health awareness, the research suggests more socially grounded reporting, incorporating lived experiences, and policy-oriented media.