Copycat suicide
Soon after its publication in 1774, young men began to mimic the main character by dressing in yellow pants and blue jackets.
In the novel, Werther shoots himself with a pistol after he is rejected by the woman he loves, and shortly after its publication there were reports of young men using the same method to kill themselves in acts of hopelessness.
Additionally, substantial upsurges were discovered in the subgroups that corresponded to each celebrity, particularly in the group when all variables (sex, age, and technique) were comparable.
He cited studies that showed that people were more likely to engage in dangerous deviant behavior, such as drug taking, if someone else had set the example first.
Higher rates of copycat suicides have been found in those with similarities in race,[15] age, and gender[2] to the deceased in the original report.
To deal with this problem, Alex Mesoudi of Queen Mary University of London, developed a computer model of a community of 1000 people, to examine how copycat suicides occur.
[28] These were divided into 100 groups of 10, in a model designed to represent different levels of social organization, such as schools or hospitals within a town or state.
University of London psychologist Alex Mesoudi recommends that reporters follow the sort of guidelines the World Health Organization[29] and others endorse for coverage of any suicide: use extreme restraint in covering these deaths—keep the word "suicide" out of the headline, don't romanticize the death, and limit the number of stories.
[30] "Photography, pictures, visual images or film depicting such cases should not be made public" (Turkey).
Craig Branson, online director of the American Society of News Editors (ASNE), has been quoted as saying, "Industry codes are very generic and totally voluntary.
The industry would fight any attempt to create more specific rules or standards, and editors would no doubt ignore them.
In the 2000s, the Mindframe national media initiative[33] followed an ambivalent response by the Australian Press Council to an earlier media resource kit issued by Suicide Prevention Australia and the Australian Institute for Suicide Research and Prevention.
The UK-based media ethics charity MediaWise provides training for journalists on reporting suicide and related issues.
Headline also serves as a vehicle for the public to become involved in helping to monitor the Irish media on issues relating to mental health and suicide.
[9] An example occurred in Vienna, Austria where the media reported a dramatic increase of copycat suicides.
[1][failed verification][39] Another famous case is the self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi, a Tunisian street vendor who set himself on fire on December 17, 2010, an act that was a catalyst for the Tunisian Revolution and sparked the Arab Spring, including several men who emulated Bouazizi's act.
[43] However, some media scholar studies implied that viewing 13 Reasons Why was not associated with suicidal ideation but actually with reduced depressive symptoms.
[45] Prof. Sonia Livingstone emphasized the claim of causality in media-effect cannot be considered conclusive because of different methodological approaches and disciplinary perspective.
