Thomas Niederkrotenthaler - Media and Suicide: International Perspectives on Research, Theory, and Policy

MEDIA AND SUICIDE

Indernational Perspectives on Research, Theory, and Policy

Thomas Niederkrotenthaler and Steven Stack, editors

First published 2017 by Transaction Publishers

Published 2017 by Routledge
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Library of Congress Catalog Number: 2016048821
ISBN: 978-1-4128-6508-1 (hbk)

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This work is based on the unique contribution of experts who are active members in the International Association for Suicide Preventions Media and Suicide Special Interest Group (SIG). In addition to many local and national activities in the area of suicide prevention in the media, the IASP SIG Suicide and the Media is dedicated to facilitating research and prevention activities in the area of suicide and the media globally. Initiated by Jane Pirkis from Australia in 2005, the SIG currently has forty-seven members from sixteen countries and is cochaired by Dan Reidenberg from the United States and Thomas Niederkrotenthaler from Austria. The provision of an interdisciplinary, international platform for suicide prevention experts from across the globe who discuss their findings on the impact of suicide awareness and education campaigns using media as a tool has rarely been more important than today, where we are increasingly living in a globalized, connected media-world. Exchange of experiences from different countries is therefore crucial to help inform more evidence-based approaches on how to work effectively with the media to prevent additional suicides and raise awareness about suicidality and how to cope with it.

A shift that has had a great impact on task force activities recently reflects ongoing changes in suicide-related media use, with an ever- increasing relevance of online media.

The SIG has the following goals:

• To improve linkages between suicide experts and media professionals;

• To systematically review research about suicide and the media (including evaluations of media guidelines), to identify gaps in knowledge, to develop a research agenda to address these gaps, and to encourage relevant research;

• To identify, collect, and collate media guidelines which have been developed around the world, and examine and report on their content, development, and implementation;

• To work collaboratively with media professionals to develop recommendations for developing and implementing media guidelines;

• To work collaboratively with media professionals to promote media guidelines to journalists, editors, and other stakeholders;

• To work on prevention of suicide using online media; and

• To provide an international body of experts that can provide authoritative comment on issues regarding suicide and the media, including issues surrounding media guidelines.

For more and up-to-date information on the SIG activities, please visit https://www.iasp.info/suicide_and_the_media.php

1 Introduction
Thomas Niederkrotenthaler and Steven Stack

2 Why Men Choose Firearms More than Women: Gender and the Portrayal of Firearm Suicide in Film, 19002013
Steven Stack and Barbara Bowman

3 Suicide Stories in the US Media: Rare and Focused on the Young
Silvia Sara Canetto, Phillip T. Tatum, and Michael D. Slater

4 Mass Shootings and Murder-Suicide: Review of the Empirical Evidence for Contagion
Madelyn S. Gould and Michael Olivares

5 Internet Bullying Distinguishes Suicide Attempters from Ideators
Steven Stack

6 The Use of Social Media in the Aftermath of a Suicide: Findings from a Qualitative Study in England
Jo Bell and Louis Bailey

7 Suicide and Newer Media: The Good, the Bad, and the Googly
Jane Pirkis, Katherine Mok, and Jo Robinson

8 The Heroic and the Criminal, the Beautiful and the Ugly: Suicide Reflected in the Mirror of the Arts
Karolina Krysinska and Karl Andriessen

9 Suicide in Kabuki Theater
Karolina Krysinska

10 Why Media Coverage of Suicide May Increase Suicide Rates: An Epistemological Review
Charles-Edouard Notredame, Nathalie Pauwels, Michael Walter, Thierry Danel, Jean-Louis Nandrino, and Guillaume Vaiva

11 Papageno Effect: Its Progress in Media Research and Contextualization with Findings on Harmful Media Effects
Thomas Niederkrotenthaler

12 The Impact of Suicide Portrayals in Films on Audiences: A Qualitative Study
Benedikt Till

13 Between Werther and Papageno Effects: A Propositional Meta-Analysis of Ambiguous Findings for Helpful and Harmful Media Effects on Suicide Contagion
Sebastian Scherr and Anna Steinleitner

14 Suicide and Mass-Media Reporting: The Very Beginning of the Viennese Experience in the 1980s
Gernot Sonneck and Elmar Etzersdorfer

15 Development of the US Recommendations for Media Reporting on Suicide
Daniel J. Reidenberg

16 Raising Media Awareness in French-Speaking Switzerland: Best Practices
Irina Inostroza and Joanne Schweizer Rodrigues

17 Promoting Responsible Portrayal of Suicide: Lessons from the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland
Lorna Fraser, Lisa Marzano, and Keith Hawton

18 Implementing International Media Guidelines in a Local Context: Experiences from Hong Kong
Qijin Cheng and Paul S. F. Yip

19 Conclusion
Steven Stack and Thomas Niederkrotenthaler

Thomas Niederkrotenthaler and Steven Stack

Recent data from the World Health Organization report that suicide took the lives of approximately eight hundred and four thousand people in 2012, representing a global suicide rate of 11.4 per 100,000 (15.0 for males and 8.0 for females). Put another way, there is a suicide someplace in the world every forty seconds. In addition, it is estimated that for every death by suicide there are more than twenty additional persons who attempt suicide. Globally, suicides account for 50 percent of all violent deaths among men and 71 percent of such deaths for women. Among youth, persons aged 1529, suicide is the second leading cause of death. Younger persons are considered to be the most susceptible to media impacts, including copycat suicides. While there is a high level of suicidality in the world, of the over two hundred nations only twenty-eight are known to have national suicide prevention strategies. Promoting responsible media reporting of suicide is part of many strategies for the reduction of suicide (World Health Organization, 2014).