Celebrity Suicide

Crisis ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 1-7
Author(s):  
Amy S. Hedman-Robertson ◽  
Starr K. Sage
Keyword(s):  
Media Coverage ◽  
Help Seeking ◽  
Online News ◽  
Suicide Method ◽  
High Profile ◽  
Cable Networks ◽  
News Websites ◽  
News Organizations ◽  
Online Videos ◽  
Celebrity Suicide

Abstract. Background: Increased suicides following media coverage of celebrities' suicide deaths have been documented in several countries. Recommendations for Reporting on Suicide were published to provide guidance for media professionals when covering suicide. Research indicates guidelines have been poorly followed. Aim: We aimed to determine whether the recommendations were similarly observed when studying two online news organizations' coverage of a celebrity's suicide. Method: In the 3 days following a high-profile celebrity's death, two US cable networks' news websites were studied to compare how the death was reported. Online articles were reviewed using a coding rubric organized by six themes and 21 coding categories. Results: Between the two organizations, 34 articles were published. Regarding the recommendations, neither source followed all of the recommendations, as measured in this study. Source A fared better in providing help-seeking information. Limitations: Only two news organizations were studied for a 3-day period. Online videos, print articles, and social media were excluded. Conclusion: The suicide of a celebrity received repetitive media coverage with little emphasis on prevention or help-seeking. The recommendations were not consistently followed by the two news websites included in this review.

Tragedy Following Tragedies: Estimating the Copycat Effect of Media-Covered Suicide in the Age of Digital News

2019 ◽  
Vol 65 (2) ◽  
pp. 312-329
Author(s):  
Daniel Ownby ◽  
P. Wesley Routon
Keyword(s):  
Suicide Rate ◽  
News Media ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
News Coverage ◽  
News Websites ◽  
Werther Effect ◽  
Digital News ◽  
Celebrity Suicide ◽  
Positive Shock ◽  
National Trends

The Werther effect is the name given to the observed relationship between celebrity suicide and the national suicide rate. Media-covered suicides are often followed by a positive shock in the national suicide rate. Using a unique time series comprising media coverage variables collected from Google News and major news websites, combined with several U.S. national trends from various sources, we estimate the magnitude of the Werther effect in the age of digital news media, where news of celebrity suicide spreads farther and more rapidly. We find a speeding up of this effect, which in the last century was only observed in the month following news coverage. Now, the effect appears slightly more prominent in the month of coverage, though it still persists in the following month. We also find evidence that the Werther effect has diminished in magnitude, perhaps due to the increased normalization of both suicide and celebrity suicide. JEL Classifications: Z13, Z19, I19

scholarly journals Is it climate change? Coverage by online news sites of the 2019 European summer heatwaves in France, Germany, the Netherlands, and the UK

2021 ◽  
Vol 169 (1-2) ◽  
Author(s):  
James Painter ◽  
Joshua Ettinger ◽  
Marie-Noëlle Doutreix ◽  
Nadine Strauß ◽  
Anke Wonneberger ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
The Netherlands ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Extreme Event ◽  
Online News ◽  
Extreme Weather Events ◽  
Weather Events ◽  
News Websites ◽  
The Uk

AbstractIn 2019, several countries across Western Europe experienced record-breaking temperatures and heatwaves which, in some cases, reached temperatures of over 40 °C for three to four consecutive days during June and July. Extreme event attribution (EEA) studies show that anthropogenic climate change increased the likelihood of these events by at least three to ten times (with different results for different countries), and increased the temperature by 1.2 to 3.0 °C. The heatwaves resulted in more than 2500 deaths. Based on a content analysis of 267 articles taken from 20 of the most visited online news websites in four of the countries most affected by the heatwaves (France, Germany, the Netherlands, and the UK), we find strong variations between countries and media outlets in how much attention journalists pay to links between climate change and the heatwaves (the UK media the most, and politically left-leaning titles more than right-leaning ones); many different types of statements depicting the link but in general, the presence of accurate, science-based descriptions; a strong presence of EEA studies in the coverage; and more quotes from climate scientists than politicians and NGOs, with a minimal presence of climate change skeptics. These results contribute to our understanding of media coverage around extreme weather events in different countries and media outlets, and how such events might serve as opportunities for public engagement with climate change.

scholarly journals SEO Practices: A Study about the Way News Websites Allow the Users to Comment on Their News Articles

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (9) ◽  
pp. 188 ◽  
Author(s):  
Minos-Athanasios Karyotakis ◽  
Evangelos Lamprou ◽  
Matina Kiourexidou ◽  
Nikos Antonopoulos
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
Information Diffusion ◽  
Essential Role ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Online News ◽  
News Websites ◽  
News Website ◽  
News Organizations ◽  
The World ◽  
Media Systems

In the current media world, there is a huge debate about the importance of the visibility of a news website in order to secure its existence. Thus, search engine optimization (SEO) practices have emerged in the news media systems around the world. This study aimed to expand the current literature about the SEO practices by focusing on examining, via the walkthrough method, the ways that news companies allow the users to comment on their online news articles. The comments on the news websites are related to the notions of social influence, information diffusion, and play an essential role as a SEO practice, for instance, by providing content and engagement. The examined sample was collected by the most visited news websites’ rankings of alexa.com for a global scale and for the countries Greece and Cyprus. The findings reveal that the news websites throughout the globe use similar features and ways to support the comments of the users. In the meantime, though, a high number of the news websites did not allow the users to use their social media accounts in order to comment the provided news articles, or provided multiple comment platforms. This trend goes against the SEO practices. It is believed that this finding is associated with the difficulty of the news organizations to regulate and protect themselves by the users’ comments that promote, in some case harmful rhetoric and polarization.

Investigating Disinformation in Middle East Mainstream News – Operationalization, Detection, and Implication

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 250-262
Author(s):  
Leon Barkho
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Online News ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Social Patterns ◽  
News Websites ◽  
Linguistic Strategies ◽  
The Media ◽  
Arabic Speaking

Abstract This paper develops some discursive resources and models to analyze how and why disinformation permeates mainstream media. It draws on certain linguistic strategies and propaganda models helpful to unravel disinformation in mainstream media coverage, with focus placed on two main Arabic speaking 24/7 news channels in the Middle East. These strategies and models are used to conduct exploratory critical analyses of data drawn from the online news websites of the two news outlets. The paper presents the trends characterizing disinformation in the Middle East, but more importantly the discursive and social patterns and practices the media employ when publishing news intended to discredit and harm rather than inform. The study’s contribution is twofold: First, it provides a discursive framework for the analysis of disinformation in traditional news outlets. Second, it provides an analytical framework to investigate how disinformation pervades mainstream media. The study’s data and analysis support the lines of research on how patriotic ethics guide coverage and how the selection of discursive patterns responds to interests of hegemonic powers with a say in media organizations’ affairs.

scholarly journals Exploring cyber violence against women and girls in the Philippines through Mining Online News

Comunicar ◽  
2022 ◽  
Vol 30 (70) ◽  
Author(s):  
January Febro-Naga ◽  
Mia-Amor Tinam-isan
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Violence Against Women ◽  
News Media ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Online News ◽  
Redes Sociales ◽  
Qualitative Approaches ◽  
News Websites ◽  
Women And Girls

Violence against women and girls (VAWG) is not a recent phenomenon. What is new is the additional increasing threats that millions of women and girls face because of the rapid spread of ICTs and the expansion of social media. Cases of VAWG wherein ICT and social media are used as platforms by cybercriminals can be seen in the news media coverage. This study aims to understand and determine the trend and the state of cyber VAWG to raise awareness through mining online news websites. News articles were scraped from popular news websites between 2015 to 2020. The preprocessed articles (N=3,506) were analyzed by year using the Topic Keyword Model (TKM). It was observed that the cyber VAWG articles topic trends are increasing with most of the articles focusing on the topics “Online sexual exploitation and sexual abuse of children” and “ICT-related violations of privacy”. Text mining methods may address the limitations of traditional qualitative approaches. Understanding the cyber VAWG issues by mining news articles is a novel approach that could help create programs and policies to address this societal concern. Additional studies should be conducted related to sentiment analysis of news data to verify and measure the influence of cyber VAWG-related topics. La violencia contra las mujeres y las niñas (VCMN) no es un fenómeno nuevo. Lo nuevo son los crecientes peligros a que se enfrentan los millones de mujeres y niñas debido a la difusión de las TIC y redes sociales. Los casos de la VCMN donde se utilizan como plataformas las TIC y las redes sociales se encuentran fácilmente por medio de la cobertura mediática. Este estudio tiene como objetivo la comprensión y la definición de la tendencia y el estado de la ciber-VCMN para crear conciencia por medio del análisis de los sitios web de noticias online. Entre 2015 y 2020, se recopilaron artículos de los principales sitios de noticias. Se utilizó el Modelo de palabras claves temáticas para evaluar los artículos preprocesados (N=3.506) por año. Se señaló que la mayoría de los artículos sobre ciber-VCMN se centraban en temas de «Explotación sexual y abuso sexual de niños en línea» y «Violaciones de la privacidad relacionadas con las TIC». El análisis de los textos ayuda a trascender las limitaciones de las metodologías cualitativas tradicionales. Comprender las preocupaciones de la ciber-VCMN mediante la extracción de artículos de noticias podría ayudar a crear iniciativas y políticas para solucionar este problema. Proponemos que se lleve a cabo una investigación utilizando análisis de sentimiento de los datos de noticias para verificar y cuantificar el impacto de los problemas relacionados con la ciber-VCMN.

Changing trends in quality of media reporting of suicide in the community following a celebrity suicide in India

2021 ◽  
pp. 000486742110096
Author(s):  
Vikas Menon ◽  
Sujita Kumar Kar ◽  
Ramdas Ransing ◽  
Ginni Sharma ◽  
Jigyansa Ipsita Pattnaik ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Online News ◽  
Significant Rise ◽  
Warning Signs ◽  
World Health ◽  
Media Reporting ◽  
Exact Test ◽  
Reporting Practices ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Celebrity Suicide

Objective: Little is known about changes in quality of media reporting of suicide in the community following a celebrity suicide. Our objective was to compare trends in quality of media reporting of suicide, before and after the suicide of an Indian entertainment celebrity, against the World Health Organization suicide reporting guidelines. Method: Online news portals of English and local language newspapers, as well as television channels, were searched to identify relevant suicide-related news articles. Comparison of reporting characteristics before and after the celebrity suicide was performed using chi-square test or Fisher’s exact test. Results: A total of 3867 eligible news reports were retrieved. There was a significant increase in harmful reporting characteristics, such as reporting the name, age and gender of the deceased ( p < 0.001 for all comparisons), mentioning the location ( p < 0.001) and reason for suicide ( p = 0.04) and including photos of the deceased ( p = 0.002) following the celebrity suicide. Helpful reporting practices were less affected; there was a significant rise in inclusion of expert opinion ( p = 0.04) and mention of suicide-related warning signs ( p = 0.02). Conclusion: Following a celebrity suicide, significant changes in the quality of media reporting of suicide were noted with an increase in several potentially harmful reporting characteristics.

scholarly journals Mental health consequences of COVID-19 media coverage: the need for effective crisis communication practices

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhaohui Su ◽  
Dean McDonnell ◽  
Jun Wen ◽  
Metin Kozak ◽  
Jaffar Abbas ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Crisis Communication ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Mental Health Problems ◽  
Economic Consequences ◽  
Global Media ◽  
News Organizations ◽  
Core Issue ◽  
Communication Practices ◽  
Media Reports

AbstractDuring global pandemics, such as coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), crisis communication is indispensable in dispelling fears, uncertainty, and unifying individuals worldwide in a collective fight against health threats. Inadequate crisis communication can bring dire personal and economic consequences. Mounting research shows that seemingly endless newsfeeds related to COVID-19 infection and death rates could considerably increase the risk of mental health problems. Unfortunately, media reports that include infodemics regarding the influence of COVID-19 on mental health may be a source of the adverse psychological effects on individuals. Owing partially to insufficient crisis communication practices, media and news organizations across the globe have played minimal roles in battling COVID-19 infodemics. Common refrains include raging QAnon conspiracies, a false and misleading “Chinese virus” narrative, and the use of disinfectants to “cure” COVID-19. With the potential to deteriorate mental health, infodemics fueled by a kaleidoscopic range of misinformation can be dangerous. Unfortunately, there is a shortage of research on how to improve crisis communication across media and news organization channels. This paper identifies ways that legacy media reports on COVID-19 and how social media-based infodemics can result in mental health concerns. This paper discusses possible crisis communication solutions that media and news organizations can adopt to mitigate the negative influences of COVID-19 related news on mental health. Emphasizing the need for global media entities to forge a fact-based, person-centered, and collaborative response to COVID-19 reporting, this paper encourages media resources to focus on the core issue of how to slow or stop COVID-19 transmission effectively.

Understanding Fatal Crash Reporting Patterns in Bangladeshi Online Media using Text Mining

2021 ◽  
pp. 036119812110142
Author(s):  
Subasish Das
Keyword(s):  
Media Coverage ◽  
News Coverage ◽  
Strong Support ◽  
Online News ◽  
World Health ◽  
Health Concern ◽  
Traffic Fatalities ◽  
Traffic Crashes ◽  
News Agency ◽  
Fatal Crash

Traffic crashes are a major public health concern. In 2016, traffic crashes resulted in over 1.35 million deaths worldwide. In Bangladesh alone, the number of reported traffic fatalities was 2,376 in 2016. However, the World Health Organization estimated that the true number of traffic fatalities in Bangladesh ranges between 20,730 and 29,177. Editorial traffic crash reports in Bangladesh, and the number of crashes that are reported, vary widely among different media outlets. This study employed a Google News Alert to collect fatal crash reports from online English daily newspapers. The current study compiled a database of 419 fatal crash-related reports over a six-month period (November 2018–April 2019). The reports contain a total of 81,019 words. The results of this study reveal that online news coverage of traffic fatalities tends to vary from news agency to news agency. Furthermore, these reports do not usually cover key contributing factors of crash occurrences; the geometric features of crash occurrence sites are rarely reported. The findings demonstrate the importance of deciphering media coverage to develop potential safety risk measures in Bangladesh. The current findings provide strong support for the need for guidelines to help media outlets adequately document fatal crash reports.

Narrative transparency and credibility: First–person process statements in video news

2021 ◽  
pp. 135485652110278
Author(s):  
Mary Angela Bock ◽  
Allison Lazard
Keyword(s):  
Online News ◽  
First Person ◽  
Ethical Imperative ◽  
News Reports ◽  
Distinct Variable ◽  
Audience Effects ◽  
News Organizations ◽  
Reporting Process ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Way

Journalism critics have argued that transparency about the reporting process is an ethical imperative. Convergence offers news organizations opportunities for changed writing styles that may foster more transparency, especially as they embrace video storytelling. This project used two experiments to investigate the impact of transparent language on the way online news consumers perceive the credibility of video news reports. The study operationalized transparency in narrative as the use of first-person statements and references to the newsgathering process. Subjects noticed transparency statements but this had no significant effect on their assessment of the credibility of a story or reporter. The results suggest that transparency is a distinct variable with a complicated relationship to other audience effects.

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