"This resource booklet briefly summarizes the current evidence on the impact of media reporting of suicide, and provides information for media professionals about how to report on suicide, recognizing that there are times when a suicide will need to be reported on the grounds of its newsworthiness.
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The booklet makes suggestions about how best to ensure that such reporting is accurate, responsible and appropriate. It is applicable to both traditional and digital media reporting. This resource booklet acknowledges that the reporting of suicide and its portrayal in various media types differ within and across countries. There are cultural differences in terms of what is appropriate to report and how information about a given suicide is accessed. While this booklet is designed to provide guiding principles about media reporting that apply across cultures, media professionals are encouraged to work with their local suicide prevention community and to draw on local media reporting guidelines, if available." (Introduction, page 1-2)
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"Suicide prevention media campaigns are gaining traction as a means of combatting suicide. The current review set out to synthesize information about the effectiveness of these campaigns. We searched four electronic databases for studies that provided evidence on the effectiveness of media campaigns
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. We focused on studies that described an evaluation of the effectiveness of an entire campaign or a public service announcement explicitly aimed at suicide prevention. We identified 20 studies of varying quality. Studies that looked at whether campaign exposure leads to improved knowledge and awareness of suicide found support for this. Most studies that considered whether campaign materials can achieve improvements in attitudes toward suicide also found this to be the case, although there were some exceptions. Some studies found that media campaigns could boost help-seeking, whereas others suggested that they made no difference or only had an impact when particular sources of help or particular types of help-seeking were considered. Relatively few studies had sufficient statistical power to examine whether media campaigns had an impact on the ultimate behavioral outcome of suicides, but those that did demonstrated significant reductions. Our review indicates that media campaigns should be considered in the suite of interventions that might be used to prevent suicide. Evidence for their effectiveness is still amassing, but there are strong suggestions that they can achieve positive results in terms of certain suicide-related outcomes. Care should be taken to ensure that campaign developers get the messaging of campaigns right, and further work is needed to determine which messages work and which ones do not, and how effective messages should be disseminated. There is an onus on those developing and delivering campaigns to evaluate them carefully and to share the findings with others. There is a need for evaluations that employ rigorous designs assessing the most pertinent outcomes. These evaluations should explore the nature of given campaigns in detail – in particular the messaging contained within them – in order to tease out which messages work well and which do not. They should also take into account the reach of the campaign, in order to determine whether it would be reasonable to expect that they might have their desired effect." (Abstract)
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"Much has been written about disasters and large-scale tragedies, but this research concentrates on individual loss and the relationship between journalist and vulnerable interviewee. While much discussion in this area is negative, focusing on the ethics of intrusion and journalists who act insensit
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ively under pressure, the authors’ aim is to turn this focus around by looking at best practice in encounters between reporters and the bereaved, survivors and the vulnerable. It is hoped that by examining contemporary death reporting, explaining its public service role, proposing a new model of ethical participation and offering a structure for sensitive interviewing, the most harmful aspects of the process can be reduced for both the journalist and, more importantly, the grieving and the victims. The work is based on years of research by the authors, on interviews with journalists, journalism educators, bereaved families and support groups and is supplemented with a detailed analysis of the reporting of death across academic disciplines and perspectives." (Publisher description)
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"Social media platforms are commonly used for the expression of suicidal thoughts and feelings, particularly by young people. Despite this, little is known about the ways in which social media can be used for suicide prevention. The aim of this study was to conduct a systematic review to identify cu
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rrent evidence pertaining to the ways in which social media are currently used as a tool for suicide prevention [...] Thirty studies were included; 4 described the development of social media sites designed for suicide prevention, 6 examined the potential of social media in terms of its ability to reach or identify people at risk of suicide, 15 examined the ways in which people used social media for suicide prevention-related purposes, and 5 examined the experiences of people who had used social media sites for suicide prevention purposes. No intervention studies were identified. Conclusion: Social media platforms can reach large numbers of otherwise hard-to-engage individuals, may allow others to intervene following an expression of suicidal ideation online, and provide an anonymous, accessible and non-judgmental forum for sharing experiences. Challenges include difficulties controlling user behaviour and accurately assessing risk, issues relating to privacy and confidentiality and the possibility of contagion. Social media appears to hold significant potential for suicide prevention; however, additional research into its safety and efficacy is required." (Abstract)
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"This edited collection provides a comprehensive overview of ethical issues associated with visual research methods. Considering the work of researchers across a range of disciplines using visual methods in research, it offers practical and thoughtful discussions of emerging methodological and ethic
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al dilemmas in innovative projects using visual methods, either in combination with other methods or as a stand-alone method to answer new kinds of research questions. Both synthesizing central themes and addressing ethical issues particularly relevant to specific research topics, in various settings and from various disciplinary perspectives, it considers how researchers navigate and conceptualise ethical issues. With contributions discussing research conducted in Australia, Argentina, Canada, India, Korea, Norway and the United Kingdom, the book's international scope, disciplinary breadth and the range of methods and research contexts addressed will notably appeal to those seeking to understand the value, and potential ethical risks, of visual methodologies for social research." (Publisher description)
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"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
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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." (Abstract)
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"This manual introduces public health workers and advocates to the essential elements of communications (with many examples and models), ranging from small brochures or radio interviews, to large campaigns and ongoing projects. It provides guidance in recognizing and combating the ‘hazard merchant
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s’ for whom profits are often at the expense of a healthy target market. This manual takes its examples from contemporary health problems and dilemmas such as the marketing of alcohol to young people, advocacy for TB protection and the sensitivity required in reporting suicide." (Page 0)
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