Audience receptiveness, the media, and aged suicide, 1968–1980

Media Coverage of Senior and Celebrity Suicides and Its Effects on Copycat Suicides among Seniors

This study examined whether suicide rates in the elderly population are associated with media coverage of senior or celebrity suicides. Analyzing data from 2012 to 2015, we found that seniors were likely to be more influenced by media coverage of senior suicides than by celebrity suicides. Furthermore, the effects of media coverage of senior suicides were more significant when the reported reason was either health (mental or physical problems) or financial issues, such as poverty than other reasons.

The Werther Effect, the Papageno Effect or No Effect? A Literature Review

This paper examines the association between media reporting on suicides and the subsequent suicides. Scientific papers from two online bibliographic sources Medline (PubMed) and PsycINFO were searched. The sample included 108 research papers examining the impact of different types of media stories on suicides. The review revealed that although the media can be a double-edged sword and serve both as a risk and a protective factor, the vast majority of research suggests that the relationship between the media reporting and the actual suicide rates is causal and real. Moreover, both the quantity and the quality of media reporting may trigger additional suicides in society. Simultaneously, research suggests that especially non-fictional presentations of celebrities’ suicides in newspapers and on television news have the biggest influence on the subsequent suicides. Additionally, a strong modelling effect of media reporting on suicide is based on nationality, age, and gender. However, research shows that because a negative reporting style can be modifiable and improved, the media can also have an educative or preventive effect and can reduce the risk of contagion. Consequently, it is important to monitor the implementation of media recommendations for the reporting of suicide, and continuous education of reporters is needed.

The Werther Effect, the Papageno Effect or No Effect? A Literature Review

This paper examines the association between media reporting on suicides and the subsequent suicides. Scientific papers from two online bibliographic sources Medline (PubMed) and PsycINFO were searched. The sample included 108 research papers examining the impact of different types of media stories on suicides. The review revealed that although the media can be a double-edged sword and serve both as a risk and a protective factor, the vast majority of research suggests that the relationship between the media reporting and the actual suicide rates is causal and real. Moreover, both the quantity and the quality of media reporting may trigger additional suicides in society. Simultaneously, research suggests that especially non-fictional presentations of celebrities' suicides in newspapers and on television news have the biggest influence on the subsequent suicides. Additionally, a strong modelling effect of media reporting on suicide is based on nationality, age, and gender. However, research shows that because a negative reporting style can be modifiable and improved, the media can also have an educative or preventive effect and can reduce the risk of contagion. Consequently, it is important to monitor the implementation of media recommendations for the reporting of suicide, and continuous education of reporters is needed.

Age and sex subgroups vulnerable to copycat suicide: evaluation of nationwide data in South Korea

Media reports of a celebrity's suicide may be followed by copycat suicides, and the impact may vary in different age and sex subgroups. We proposed a quantitative framework to assess the vulnerability of age and sex subgroups to copycat suicide and used this method to investigate copycat suicides in relation to the suicides of 10 celebrities in South Korea from 1993 to 2013. By applying a detrending model to control for annual and seasonal fluctuations, we estimated the expected number of suicides within a copycat suicide period. The copycat effect was assessed in two ways: the magnitude of copycat suicide by dividing the observed by the expected number of suicides, and the mortality rate by subtracting the expected from the observed number of suicides. Females aged 20-29 years were the most vulnerable subgroup according to both the magnitude of the copycat effect (2.31-fold increase over baseline) and the mortality rate from copycat suicide (22.7-increase). Males aged 50-59 years were the second most vulnerable subgroup according to the copycat suicide mortality rate (20.5- increase). We hope that the proposed quantitative framework will be used to identify vulnerable subgroups to copycat effect, thereby helping devise strategies for prevention.

Familial and social transmission of suicidal behavior in older adults

BACKGROUND

Both biological and social mechanisms have been implicated in the transmission of suicidal behavior in younger and middle-aged adults. Yet, while suicide rates rise with age, it is not clear whether such mechanisms operate in late life. Thus, we looked for evidence of social and familial suicidal transmission in elderly with late- vs. early-onset suicidal behavior by examining exposure to suicidal behavior within biological relatives and broader social networks.

METHOD

Participants were 356 adults, aged 50 or older (mean: 67), divided into five groups: early-onset suicide attempters (first lifetime attempt before age 60), late-onset attempters, suicide ideators (without attempt history), depressed non-suicidal controls, and non-psychiatric controls. History of suicidal behavior in one's biological relatives and friends/unrelated kin was assessed via clinical interview, and group differences were examined via generalized linear mixed-effects models.

RESULTS

There was a main effect of group (χ²₄ = 18.38, p < 0.001) such that familial or social exposure to suicidal behavior was more prevalent in early- than late-onset attempters. Late-onset attempters' exposure was similar to non-suicidal groups'. However, there was no significant group by relationship interaction, indicating that suicidal behavior was not significantly more prominent among the biological relatives of either attempter group.

LIMITATIONS

Participants' report of exposure is subject to awareness and recall biases.

CONCLUSION

Suicidal clustering in biological relatives and friends/unrelated kin is associated with early-, but not late-onset suicidal behavior in older adults. Suicidal transmission in older adults follows a pattern of familial and social clustering suggestive of social transmission.

Media roles in suicide prevention: a systematic review

The aim of the current systematic review was to monitor and provide an overview of the research performed about the roles of media in suicide prevention in order to find out possible effects media reporting on suicidal behaviours might have on actual suicidality (completed suicides, attempted suicides, suicidal ideation). The systematic review was performed following the principles of the PRISMA statement and includes 56 articles. Most of the studies support the idea that media reporting and suicidality are associated. However, there is a risk of reporting bias. More research is available about how irresponsible media reports can provoke suicidal behaviours (the 'Werther effect') and less about protective effect media can have (the 'Papageno effect'). Strong modelling effect of media coverage on suicide is based on age and gender. Media reports are not representative of official suicide data and tend to exaggerate sensational suicides, for example dramatic and highly lethal suicide methods, which are rare in real life. Future studies have to encounter the challenges the global medium Internet will offer in terms of research methods, as it is difficult to define the circulation of news in the Internet either spatially or in time. However, online media can provide valuable innovative qualitative research material.

Depression moderated the effect of exposure to suicide news on suicidality among college students in Taiwan

The present study was designed to examine whether age, gender, and depression level may moderate the effect of exposure to suicide news on the suicidality of college students in Taiwan. A representative sample of 3,222 college students were recruited from Southern Taiwan with a total of 2,602 useable surveys returned. Results showed that only depression level reached a significant moderating effect and further examination showed that the exposure to suicide news significantly predicted suicidality solely in the severely depressed group.

Suicide Reporting Content Analysis

Despite substantial research on media influences and the development of media guidelines on suicide reporting, research on the specifics of media stories that facilitate suicide contagion has been limited. The goal of the present study was to develop a content analytic strategy to code features in media suicide reports presumed to be influential in suicide contagion and determine the interrater reliability of the qualitative characteristics abstracted from newspaper stories. A random subset of 151 articles from a database of 1,851 newspaper suicide stories published during 1988 through 1996, which were collected as part of a national study in the United States to identify factors associated with the initiation of youth suicide clusters, were evaluated. Using a well-defined content-analysis procedure, the agreement between raters in scoring key concepts of suicide reports from the headline, the pictorial presentation, and the text were evaluated. The results show that while the majority of variables in the content analysis were very reliable, assessed using the κ statistic, and obtained excellent percentages of agreement, the reliability of complicated constructs, such as sensationalizing, glorifying, or romanticizing the suicide, was comparatively low. The data emphasize that before effective guidelines and responsible suicide reporting can ensue, further explication of suicide story constructs is necessary to ensure the implementation and compliance of responsible reporting on behalf of the media.

Suicide in the media: a quantitative review of studies based on non-fictional stories

Research on the effect of suicide stories in the media on suicide in the real world has been marked by much debate and inconsistent findings. Recent narrative reviews have suggested that research based on nonfictional models is more apt to uncover imitative effects than research based on fictional models. There is, however, substantial variation in media effects within the research restricted to nonfictional accounts of suicide. The present analysis provides some explanations of the variation in findings in the work on nonfictional media. Logistic regression techniques applied to 419 findings from 55 studies determined that: (1) studies measuring the presence of either an entertainment or political celebrity were 5.27 times more likely to find a copycat effect, (2) studies focusing on stories that stressed negative definitions of suicide were 99% less likely to report a copycat effect, (3) research based on television stories (which receive less coverage than print stories) were 79% less likely to find a copycat effect, and (4) studies focusing on female suicide were 4.89 times more likely to report a copycat effect than other studies. The full logistic regression model correctly classified 77.3% of the findings from the 55 studies. Methodological differences among studies are associated with discrepancies in their results.

The Werther effect and assisted suicide

In the course of a large epidemiological study in the region of Basle, Switzerland, from 1992 to 1996, a considerable rise in suicides assisted by the right-to-die society EXIT was uncovered after wide press coverage of an assisted double suicide of a prominent couple in that region in March 1995. Further investigation revealed that the rise of assisted suicides for a period of 2 years after the critical event was statistically significant compared to the 2 years previous to the double suicide. This was especially true for women older than 65 years. Hence, the almost enthusiastic kind of reporting about this event was apt to induce imitation suicides or a "Werther-effect."

Suicide and the media. Part I: Reportage in nonfictional media

Numerous studies have considered the association between media reporting and portrayal of suicide and actual suicidal behavior or ideation. This review considered 42 studies that have examined the nonfiction media (newspapers, television, and books). Consideration was given to the extent to which inferences could be made about the relationship between portrayal of suicide in the given media and actual suicidal behavior in terms of: the strength of its association; and the extent to which it could be considered causal. The review demonstrated that there is an association between nonfictional media portrayal of suicide and actual suicide. The association satisfies sufficient of the criteria of consistency, strength, temporality, specificity and coherence for it to be deemed causal.

Suicide and the media. Part III: Theoretical issues

The body of evidence suggests that there is a causal association between nonfictional media reporting of suicide (in newspapers, on television, and in books) and actual suicide, and that there may be one between fictional media portrayal (in film and television, in music, and in plays) and actual suicide. This finding has been explained by social learning theory. The majority of studies upon which this finding is based fall into the media "effects tradition," which has been criticized for its positivist-like approach that fails to take into account of media content or the capacity of audiences to make meaning out of messages. A cultural studies approach that relies on discourse and frame analyses to explore meanings, and that qualitatively examines the multiple meanings that audiences give to media messages, could complement the effects tradition. Together, these approaches have the potential to clarify the notion of what constitutes responsible reporting of suicide, and to broaden the framework for evaluating media performance.

The Media and Suicide: A Cautionary View

Summary: There is now unequivocal statistical evidence of an association between some media portrayals of suicide and further subsequent suicide. However, it is a weak association, and it is probably of far less importance than our need to address basic principles of good mental health management. Rather than prescribe to the media how to report suicide, its potentially positive effects should be addressed.

Suicide and the media

Evidence continues to amass on the significant impact of media coverage on suicide. The research literature on the impact of news reports of nonfictional suicides as well as fictional suicide stories is reviewed in order to determine the nature and scope of the influence of the mass media on suicide. The current review, building upon earlier reviews, is limited to English language publications or English translations of articles and/or abstracts. The interactive factors that may moderate the impact of media stories are also reviewed. Such interactive factors include characteristics of the stories (agent), individuals' attributes (host), and social context of the stories (environment). Recommendations are presented for the reporting of suicide stories, which may minimize the risk of imitative suicides. The media's positive role in educating the public about risks for suicide and shaping attitudes about suicide is emphasized. In summary, the existence of suicide contagion no longer needs to be questioned. We should refocus our research efforts on identifying which particular story components promote contagion under which circumstances and which components are useful for preventive programming.