Citation

Choi YJ, Oh H. Journal of Media Economics 2016; 29(2): 92-105.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2016)

DOI

10.1080/08997764.2016.1170020

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This article investigates the link between media coverage of celebrity suicides and the nation's suicide rate. The instrumental variable regression is applied to suicide data from Statistics Korea and the media coverage data on celebrity suicides from Mediagaon of the Korea Press Foundation during the period from 1997 to 2009. The estimation results demonstrate that Korean celebrity suicides have significantly increased suicide rates, whereas non-Korean celebrity suicides have not. Moreover, greater media coverage of Korean celebrity suicides is associated with an increase in suicide rates. These findings shed light on the importance of media policy in the prevention of copycat suicides. © 2016 Taylor & Francis.

Language: en