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Media coverage of Robin Williams' suicide in the United States: A contributor to contagion?

ABSTRACT: Evidence suggests that suicide rates can increase following the suicide of a prominent celebrity or peer, sometimes known as 'suicide contagion'. The risk of contagion is especially high when media coverage is detailed and sensational. A recent study reported a 10% increase in U.S. suicides in the months following the suicide of comedian Robin Williams, who died in August 2014. The authors tentatively linked this increase to sensational media coverage; however, no content analysis of U.S. media was performed. As such, the aim of the present study is to formally examine the tone and content of U.S. newspaper coverage of Williams' suicide. The primary objective is to assess adherence to suicide reporting guidelines in U.S. newspapers after his suicide. The secondary objective is to identify common emerging themes discussed in these articles. The tertiary objective is to compare patterns of results in the U.S media with those in the Canadian media. Articles about Williams' suicide were collected from 10 U.S. newspapers in the 30-day period following his death using systematic retrieval software, which were then examined for adherence to suicide reporting recommendations. An inductive thematic analysis was also undertaken. A total of 63 articles were included in the study. We found that 100% of articles did not call it a 'successful' suicide, 96.8% did not use pejorative phrases and 71% did not say 'commit' suicide. However, only 11% included information about help-seeking, 27% tended to romanticize his suicide and 46% went into detail about the method. The most prominent emerging theme was Williams' struggles with mental illness and addiction. These findings suggest that U.S. newspapers moderately adhered to best practice recommendations when reporting Williams' suicide. Key recommendations were underapplied, which may have contributed to suicide contagion. New interventions targeting U.S. journalists and media may be needed to improve suicide reporting.

SUBMITTER: Carmichael V

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6508639 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Media coverage of Robin Williams' suicide in the United States: A contributor to contagion?

Carmichael Victoria V Whitley Rob R

PloS one 20190509 5

Evidence suggests that suicide rates can increase following the suicide of a prominent celebrity or peer, sometimes known as 'suicide contagion'. The risk of contagion is especially high when media coverage is detailed and sensational. A recent study reported a 10% increase in U.S. suicides in the months following the suicide of comedian Robin Williams, who died in August 2014. The authors tentatively linked this increase to sensational media coverage; however, no content analysis of U.S. media ...[more]

PMID: 31071144

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Project description:BackgroundA large corpus of research indicates that the media plays a key role in shaping public beliefs, opinions and attitudes towards social groups. Some research from the United States indicates that military Veterans are sometimes framed in a stereotypical and stigmatizing manner, however there is a lack of research on Canadian media coverage of Veterans. As such, the overarching aim of this study is to assess the tone and content of Canadian media coverage of military Veterans, with a focus on PTSD and suicide. The first objective is to document and analyze common themes, content and temporal patterns in Canadian media coverage of Veterans per se. The second objective is to examine common themes and content in the sub-set of articles having PTSD as a theme. The third objective is to assess adherence to responsible reporting of suicide guidelines in the sub-set of articles having suicide as a theme.MethodsWe used validated and systematic methods including use of key words, retrieval software and inter-rater reliability tests to collect and code news articles (N = 915) about Veterans from over 50 media sources during a 12-month period, with specific coding of articles about PTSD (N = 93) and suicide (N = 61).ResultsAnalysis revealed that the most common theme is 'honour or commemoration of Veterans' which occurred in over half of the articles. In contrast 14% of articles focused on danger, violence or criminality. In the sub-set of articles with PTSD as a theme, over 60% focused on danger, violence or criminality, while only around 1 in 3 focused on recovery, rehabilitation, or health/social service intervention. In the sub-set of articles about suicide, there was generally strong adherence to responsible reporting guidelines, though less than 5% gave help-seeking information. Moreover, most reporting on PTSD and suicide focused on a single anomalous murder-suicide incident, with few articles about suicide prevention, helpful resources and modifiable risk factors.ConclusionsThe results reveal some encouraging findings as well as a need to diversify media coverage of Canadian Veterans. This could be achieved through targeted educational outreach to help Canadian journalists responsibly report on Veterans and their mental health issues.

Project description:Importance:A recent increase in suicide in the United States has raised public and clinical interest in determining whether a coincident national increase in suicide attempts has occurred and in characterizing trends in suicide attempts among sociodemographic and clinical groups. Objective:To describe trends in recent suicide attempts in the United States. Design, Setting, and Participants:Data came from the 2004-2005 wave 2 National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC) and the 2012-2013 NESARC-III. These nationally representative surveys asked identical questions to 69?341 adults, 21 years and older, concerning the occurrence and timing of suicide attempts. Risk differences adjusted for age, sex, and race/ethnicity (ARDs) assessed trends from the 2004-2005 to 2012-2013 surveys in suicide attempts across sociodemographic and psychiatric disorder strata. Additive interactions tests compared the magnitude of trends in prevalence of suicide attempts across levels of sociodemographic and psychiatric disorder groups. The analyses were performed from February 8, 2017, through May 31, 2017. Main Outcomes and Measures:Self-reported attempted suicide in the 3 years before the interview. Results:With use of data from the 69?341 participants (42.8% men and 57.2% women; mean [SD] age, 48.1 [17.2] years), the weighted percentage of US adults making a recent suicide attempt increased from 0.62% in 2004-2005 (221 of 34?629) to 0.79% in 2012-2013 (305 of 34?712; ARD, 0.17%; 95% CI, 0.01%-0.33%; P?=?.04). In both surveys, most adults with recent suicide attempts were female (2004-2005, 60.17%; 2012-2013, 60.94%) and younger than 50 years (2004-2005, 84.75%; 2012-2013, 80.38%). The ARD for suicide attempts was significantly larger among adults aged 21 to 34 years (0.48%; 95% CI, 0.09% to 0.87%) than among adults 65 years and older (0.06%; 95% CI, -0.02% to 0.14%; interaction P?=?.04). The ARD for suicide attempts was also significantly larger among adults with no more than a high school education (0.49%; 95% CI, 0.18% to 0.80%) than among college graduates (0.03%; 95% CI, -0.17% to 0.23%; interaction P?=?.003); the ARD was also significantly larger among adults with antisocial personality disorder (2.16% [95% CI, 0.61% to 3.71%] vs 0.07% [95% CI, -0.09% to 0.23%]; interaction P?=?.01), a history of violent behavior (1.04% [95% CI, 0.35% to 1.73%] vs 0.00% [95% CI, -0.12% to 0.12%]; interaction P?=?.003), or a history of anxiety (1.43% [95% CI, 0.47% to 2.39%] vs 0.18% [95% CI, 0.04% to 0.32%]; interaction P?=?.01) or depressive (0.99% [95% CI, -0.09% to 2.07%] vs -0.08% [95% CI, -0.20% to 0.04%]; interaction P?=?.05) disorders than among adults without these conditions. Conclusions and Relevance:A recent overall increase in suicide attempts among adults in the United States has disproportionately affected younger adults with less formal education and those with antisocial personality disorder, anxiety disorders, depressive disorders, and a history of violence.

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Media coverage of Robin Williams' suicide in the United States: A contributor to contagion?

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Media coverage of Robin Williams' suicide in the United States: A contributor to contagion?

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