In this report, the authors provide analysis to better understand how mental health has been reflected in media coverage of COVID-19 in Aotearoa. The findings are presented in short, summary form; with a longer technical report providing greater detail on the data, methodology, and findings.

Drawing on more than 3000 publicly available media articles, the authors used natural language processing to investigate and to explore media coverage by mainstream news media and how this changed over the pandemic.

The report identifies nine broad themes and six sub-themes that describe the impacts of the pandemic on mental health in New Zealand. In short:  

• Media coverage on the mental health problems contributed to by the pandemic has been concentrated on the changes to people’s work, education, and lifestyle, the material impacts of this, and loneliness. 
• Media coverage on mental health solutions has focused on resources, chiefly access to services, supports and resources. 
• Distress and other impacts of the pandemic have frequently been normalised and universalised in media coverage.

These are important factors, but this narrow view misses out other factors that we know are important to mental health in Aotearoa.