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Abstract
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Asharani et al. present an enlightening study of media influences on suicidality and suicides from multinational data, all within Asia.1 This is important, as knowledge based on media and suicide has been dominated by Western cultures and English and other European languages. Pulling together various independent studies, as Asharani et al. have done, represents a long-overdue contribution to our understanding of how our Asian communities respond to reports of celebrity and other significant suicide events. In addition, these findings highlight the need for improved research methods and data collection, and making data public for meta-analyses and follow-up studies.
Around Asia, we have seen suicide copycat effects, such as from Lee Eun-ju's suicide.4 Asharani et al.'s analysis revealed that these events share similar patterns around Asia, and associations between media coverage of suicide and suicide rates are also similar to reviews from decades ago in Western media.7 We see indications that younger people, who may identify with a particular celebrity, may be prompted via media reporting towards increased suicidality and behaviours. When our institution examined newspaper reporting of suicides in Cambodia,2 we found numerous examples of reports on "how to commit suicide", that is, explicit methods used by the suicide victim. This is an example of reporting that is strongly recommended against.10 Study findings indicating specific reporting issues (e.g. glamorisation of suicide) generally lead to increased pressures on mass media organisations to adhere to suicide media reporting standards. Media guidelines are necessary, and not a new idea within the Asian region.8 However, many media guideline recommendations are not strongly evidence-based, and there is always a need for reanalysis and revision.
Suicide reporting guidelines cannot be effective at reducing suicide rates if they are not firmly rooted in reality, which can only be determined through rigorous research. Unfortunately, this new meta-analysis also identified a considerable need for improving the quality of studies by reducing biases and improving research methods. Several improvements in research methods are imperative to ascertain the true effects of media reporting on suicide within the already complex set of known suicide risk and protective factors. Improvements should include better categorisation and measurement of study variables. For example, several studies use a simple yes-or-no variable and other binary-type variables when in fact, the true factor comprises a spectrum. A media report could be described as either a "yes" or a "no", on whether it provides information on the suicide method. However, a "yes" answer could include an ordinal scale describing a news report as "moderately" or "substantially" providing information on suicide methods. Such detailed information can allow for more advanced and precise statistical analyses.
Language: en |