Suicide on TV: minimising the risk to vulnerable viewers

Arendt, Florian; Scherr, Sebastian; Till, Benedikt; Prinzellner, Yvonne; Hines, Kevin; Niederkrotenthaler, Thomas

doi:10.1136/bmj.j3876

Cited by 24 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…36 This outcome might have helped mitigate any harmful consequences of 13 Reasons Why. Furthermore, mental health and suicide prevention organizations shared material for educating teachers, adolescents, clinicians, and parents about how to discuss the show in schools, 3 and Netflix added content warnings to the show in May 2017. 37 Although it is impossible to account for all potential confounding variables, it is notable that the timing, specificity, and magnitude of the associations observed here are all consistent with a potential contagion by media.…”

Section: Strengths and Limitationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Association of Increased Youth Suicides in the United States With the Release of13 Reasons Why

et al. 2019

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IMPORTANCE On March 31, 2017, Netflix released the show 13 Reasons Why, sparking immediate criticism from suicide prevention organizations for not following media recommendations for responsible suicide portrayal and for possible suicide contagion by media. To date, little research has been conducted into the associations between the show and suicide counts among its young target audience. OBJECTIVE To analyze the changes in suicide counts after the release of 13 Reasons Why. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS For this time series analysis, monthly suicide data for the age groups 10 to 19 years, 20 to 29 years, and 30 years or older for both US males and females from January 1, 1999, to December 31, 2017, were extracted from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's WONDER (Wide-ranging Online Data for Epidemiologic Research) database. Twitter and Instagram posts were used as a proxy to estimate the amount of attention the show received through social media from April 1, 2017, to June 30, 2017. Autoregressive integrated moving average time series models were fitted to the pre-April 2017 period to estimate suicides among the age groups and to identify changes in specific suicide methods used. The models were fitted to the full time series with dummy variables for (1)

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Section: Strengths and Limitationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Observers have called for nationwide analyses of death data given the widespread belief that 13 Reasons Why could trigger suicides in the vulnerable younger population. 3,15,16 Such studies had not been possible until the recent release of 2017 suicide data by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.…”

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confidence: 99%

Association of Increased Youth Suicides in the United States With the Release of13 Reasons Why

et al. 2019

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“…Recently, the release of the Netflix show 13 Reasons Why , which depicts the suicidal process of an American adolescent girl, provided an ecological example of the effect of a video suicide narrative at the population level. Indeed, several authors cautioned about the serious—albeit potentially mixed [22,23,24]—impact of the series on youths’ mental health [25]. In the months following the broadcast, Niederkrothentaler et al found that suicide rates among those aged 10–19 years were 13% higher than expected from secular trends [14].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Construction and Validation of an Analytical Grid about Video Representations of Suicide (“MoVIES”)

Gauld

Wathelet

Medjkane

et al. 2019

IJERPH

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Background. Exposure to fictional suicide scenes raises concerns about the risk of suicide contagion. However, researchers and clinicians still lack empirical evidence to estimate this risk. Here, we propose a theory-grounded tool that measures properties related to aberrant identification and suicidal contagion of potentially harmful suicide scenes. Methods. The items of the Movies and Video: Identification and Emotions in reaction to Suicide (MoVIES) operationalize the World Health Organization’s recommendations for media coverage of suicide, and were adapted and completed with identification theory principles and cinematographic evidence. Inter-rater reliability (Cohen’s kappa) and internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha) were estimated and optimized for two series of 19 and 30 randomly selected movies depicting a suicide scene. The validity of the scale in predicting identification with the suicidal character was tested in nine unknowledgeable participants who watched seven suicide movie scenes each. Results. The MoVIES indicated satisfying psychometric properties with kappas measured at 0.7 or more for every item and a global internal consistency of [α = 0.05]. The MoVIES score significantly predicted participants’ strength of identification independently from their baseline empathy ((β = 0.20), p < 0.05). Conclusions. The MoVIES is available to scholars as a valid, reliable, and useful tool to estimate the amount of at-risk components of fictional suicidal behavior depicted in films, series, or television shows.

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“…In response to the 13 Reasons Why controversy, the British Medical Journal (BMJ), in an editorial titled ‘Suicide on TV: minimizing the risk to vulnerable viewers’ (Arendt et al, 2017), called for better implementation of international standards to regulate how television and movie producers represent suicide on screen. According to the authors, the Netflix series could trigger ‘self-harm among vulnerable viewers by romanticizing suicide and portraying it as the only option to cope with negative experiences’ (Arendt et al, 2017: para 2). For this reason, it is argued that ‘clinicians need to be aware of heightened media attention to adolescent suicide and ask vulnerable young patients about possible exposure so that potentially harmful effects can be minimized’ (Arendt et al, 2017: para 6).…”

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confidence: 99%

13 Reasons Why: can a TV show about suicide be ‘dangerous’? What are the moral obligations of a producer?

Scalvini

2020

Media, Culture & Society

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The release of the Netflix’s show 13 Reasons Why caused significant public concern about the risk of suicide contagion among teenagers – particularly those who have suicidal thoughts. Practitioners and researchers expressed apprehension about the show for its apparent praise of suicide and for allegedly increasing suicide risk among vulnerable teenagers. However, there is a lack of clear evidence for the influence of fictional content on self-harm. Little is known about variations in media effects between news and fiction. The literature focuses mainly on non-fictional media reporting, without making any distinction between individual vulnerability and the type of media portrayal. The present article criticizes the assumption that risk of self-harm is reduced by sanitizing fictional content. The absence of definite scientific evidence is precisely why this article re-addresses the problem through an ethical perspective by focusing on the moral responsibility of Netflix. Censoring fiction may do more harm than good, but producers have the responsibility to evaluate in advance the potential impact that such content has on vulnerable people, and to support viewers as well as parents, educators, and practitioners through an adequate campaign of prevention.

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Suicide on TV: minimising the risk to vulnerable viewers

Abstract: International media guidance should be strengthened, implemented, and enforced

Cited by 24 publications

References 6 publications

Association of Increased Youth Suicides in the United States With the Release of13 Reasons Why

Association of Increased Youth Suicides in the United States With the Release of13 Reasons Why

Construction and Validation of an Analytical Grid about Video Representations of Suicide (“MoVIES”)

13 Reasons Why: can a TV show about suicide be ‘dangerous’? What are the moral obligations of a producer?

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