The Influence of Media Coverage of a Celebrity Suicide on Subsequent Suicide Attempts

Cheng, Andrew T. A.; Hawton, Keith; Chen, Tony H. H.; Yen, Amy Ming‐Fang; Chen, Chung-Ying; Chen, Lin-Chen; Teng, Po-Ren

doi:10.4088/jcp.v68n0606

Cited by 72 publications

(52 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…Consistent with previous literature, articles about suicide in celebrities; 4,12,[16][17][18][19][20][32][33][34][35] by asphyxia other than by car exhaust (i.e., by plastic bag or helium gas, but not hanging or car exhaust) [36][37][38][39][40][41] or by jumping; 5,16 suicide pacts; 21 and that included the method in the headline 21 were each independently associated with post-item increases in suicides. It is particularly noteworthy that articles emphasizing the inevitability of suicide were associated with increased subsequent deaths.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 73%

The association between suicide deaths and putatively harmful and protective factors in media reports

Sinyor¹,

Schaffer²,

Nishikawa³

et al. 2018

CMAJ

144

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Suicide is a major, global public health issue that accounts for at least 800 000 deaths per year worldwide.1 A substantial body of literature shows that media reports relating to suicide can influence some people to end their lives. [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12] This phenomenon, known as the Werther effect, is thought to occur via social learning, whereby a vulnerable person identifies with someone portrayed in the media and copies his or her behaviour. [5][6][7][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21] Studies in Australia, Austria and the United States have identified potentially harmful elements of media reporting associated with increased rates of subsequent suicide. 5,6,21 These include repetitive reporting, front-page story placement, reports about suicides by jumping, suicide death (rather than ideation or attempts), suicide pacts, including the word "suicide" or the suicide method in the headline, accompanying photos, "monocausal" (single cause and effect) explanations for suicide, and reports that included misinformation ("public myths") about suicide. 5,6,21 However, these elements were not tested or significant in all studies.A second phenomenon, called the Papageno effect, has been proposed whereby protective factors in reports on suicide may lead readers to initiate adaptive behaviours, resulting in fewer suicide deaths.5 In Austria, newspaper articles depicting "mastery of suicide," in which people experienced suicidal ideation but found solutions other than suicidal behaviour, were associated with decreased subsequent suicides. 5Responsible media reporting is one of a limited number of strategies, which also include restriction of means and schoolbased awareness programs, that may affect suicide rates at a popu lation level. [22][23][24] Worldwide, numerous guidelines have been developed to advise the media on best practices. ABSTRACT BACKGROUND: Exposure to media reporting on suicide can lead to suicide contagion and, in some circumstances, may also lead to help-seeking behaviour. There is limited evidence for which specific characteristics of media reports mediate these phenomena.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 73%

The association between suicide deaths and putatively harmful and protective factors in media reports

Sinyor¹,

Schaffer²,

Nishikawa³

et al. 2018

CMAJ

144

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Copycat suicide is a unique event where the individual attempts suicide following the announcement of a celebrity suicide. Copycat suicide can temporarily increase a specific area's or even the entire country's suicide rate in the long-term period [2,3,5,8,16,19].…”

Section: Importancementioning

confidence: 99%

“…We may not have identified all the celebrity suicides occurring during the study period. We defined the event using our own operational definition as no consensus for the definition exists in previous literatures [2,3,5,8,16,19].…”

Section: Limitationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effects of celebrity suicide on copycat suicide attempt: a multi-center observational study

Jeong

Shin

Kim

et al. 2011

Soc Psychiatry Psychiatr Epidemiol

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“…However Levesque also notes concerns about possible risk in this kind of identification, particularly when those doing the idolising have a history of depression and suicide attempts. A Taiwanese study (Cheng, et al, 2007) confirmed that young people who had attempted suicide in the previous year were more likely to re-attempt immediately after a celebrity idol committed suicide, and noted that overall, there was an increase in suicide attempts following public reporting of these events by the media.Although identifying with morbid music and negative idols is frequently an issue of concern for parents and carers, it is important to acknowledge the transactional nature of this fascination and not leap to simplistic conclusions about causality. As…”

mentioning

confidence: 97%

Musical Life Stories: Narratives on Health Musicking

Gallagher

2015

Music Therapy Perspectives

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Foreword: To Music's Health Gary AnsdellRecently I was on a panel suggesting career options for music students at a London university. The other panel members talked about working in music education, broadcasting, events management, and digital media. (Performing was strangely absent -presumably because most musicians can't make a career out of this now!) I talked about music therapy for ten minutes, and the students seemed interested. But when the discussion part of the evening arrived I wasn't asked a single question. At first I felt embarrassed, but then I remembered some previous occasions... and sure enough, after the formal event finished there was a line of students waiting to talk to me. Most of them didn't have a question as such; rather, they wanted to tell me their 'musical life stories'. An Indian student had been traumatically summoned to her mother's deathbed in India, but by the time she got home the mother was in a coma. The student was an expert in traditional singing, inspired by her mother's love of this style. When the daughter sang the mother came out of coma enough for mother and daughter to have vital hours of farewell. Another man simply looked me in the eye and said, "My life just fell apart -and music saved me. When I looked around with new eyes and ears I realised that it saves many other people too, so I now feel this is my vocation. What do I do?".These musical life stories were too intimate for the public forum that evening. But although the people who wanted to talk to me had particularly intense musical stories, I felt that these 'musical miracles' were just the tip of the iceberg of a spectrum of more everyday experiences, uses, and understandings about how music helps people in and through their lives. They also perhaps illustrated a distinct and strengthening area of interest and understanding for a generation of people for whom 'music and health' or 'music therapy' are not strange associations of words and experiences (as they were perhaps up to twenty years ago in the modern West). There seems to be a new and serious interest to understand, and to make available, the musical basis of wellbeing.Signs of this are appearing both in academic and popular culture. Conferences are springing up around the world on themes linking music, health and wellbeing, whilst 4 Gary Ansdell cultural organisations such as orchestras are promoting musical events for their wellbeing as well as their aesthetic value. Reality TV shows present choirs tackling social issues, whilst films, plays, and novels increasingly use this trope as a plot device. To cite just one recent example, no less that Vanessa Redgrave stars in Song for Marion, a film where a woman with cancer experiences the therapeutic value of a local community choir, whilst her husband (played by Terence Stamp) continues to experience the personal and socially redemptive powers of musicking after her death. It seems that music and musicking have become both a metaphor and an enactment of the complexities and dramas of social life -its ha...

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The Influence of Media Coverage of a Celebrity Suicide on Subsequent Suicide Attempts

Cited by 72 publications

References 15 publications

The association between suicide deaths and putatively harmful and protective factors in media reports

The association between suicide deaths and putatively harmful and protective factors in media reports

The effects of celebrity suicide on copycat suicide attempt: a multi-center observational study

Musical Life Stories: Narratives on Health Musicking

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