‘Community Care’ as Persuasive Rhetoric: A Study of Discourse

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Abstract
The effect of different linguistic constructions of current mental health policy on lay people was examined using the theoretical framework of discourse analysis. Fifty subjects were presented with vignettes either expressed in ‘community care’ terms or matched alternatives. Subjects in the community care group rated the policy significantly more positively, and viewed it as more ‘organic’ and ‘active’ in line with predictions from studies of community discourse in other fields. This group also gave more favourable estimates of the outcome of integration of the handicapped. Questions on prior contact and the prospect of living close to handicapped people provided a broad check on the matching of the samples. Overall, these findings suggest that linguistic framing may have played an important part in the public acceptance of policy but could have also discouraged its full and systematic evaluation.

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