Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2020 Oct:53:102380.
doi: 10.1016/j.ajp.2020.102380. Epub 2020 Aug 29.

The quality of online media reporting of celebrity suicide in India and its association with subsequent online suicide-related search behaviour among general population: An infodemiology study

Ragul Ganesh  1 , Swarndeep Singh  1 , Rajan Mishra  1 , Rajesh Sagar  2
Affiliations

The quality of online media reporting of celebrity suicide in India and its association with subsequent online suicide-related search behaviour among general population: An infodemiology study

Ragul Ganesh et al. Asian J Psychiatr. 2020 Oct.

Abstract

The literature reports increased suicide rates among general population in the weeks following the celebrity suicide, known as the Werther effect. The World Health Organization (WHO) has developed guidelines for responsible media reporting of suicide. The present study aimed to assess the quality of online media reporting of a recent celebrity suicide in India and its impact on the online suicide related search behaviour of the population. A total of 200 online media reports about Sushant Singh Rajput's suicide published between 14th to 20th June 2020 were assessed for quality of reporting following the checklist prepared using the WHO guidelines. Further, we examined the change in online suicide-seeking and help-seeking search behaviour of the population following celebrity suicide for the month of June using selected keywords. In terms of potentially harmful media reportage, 85.5 % of online reports violated at least one WHO media reporting guideline. In terms of potentially helpful media reportage, only 13 % articles provided information about where to seek help for suicidal thoughts or ideation. There was a significant increase in online suicide-seeking (U = 0.5, p < 0.05) and help-seeking (U = 6.5, p < 0.05) behaviour after the reference event, when compared to baseline. However, the online peak search interest for suicide-seeking was greater than help-seeking. This provides support for a strong Werther effect, possibly associated with poor quality of media reporting of celebrity suicide. There is an urgent need for taking steps to improve the quality of media reporting of suicide in India.

Keywords: Celebrity suicide; Google trends; India; Media reporting; Werther effect.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Word cloud of media report headlines analysed in the study (N = 200).
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Google Trends graph depicting change in online search interest for queries representing suicide-seeking and help-seeking behaviours in India for the month of June 2020 (Results are expressed as relative normalized search volume numbers).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Amante D.J., Hogan T.P., Pagoto S.L., English T.M., Lapane K.L. Access to care and use of the internet to search for health information: results from the US national health interview survey. J. Med. Internet Res. 2015;17:e106. doi: 10.2196/jmir.4126. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Arafat S.M.Y., Kar S.K., Marthoenis M., Cherian A.V., Vimala L., Kabir R. Quality of media reporting of suicidal behaviors in South-East Asia. Neurol. Psychiatry Brain Res. 2020;37:21–26. doi: 10.1016/j.npbr.2020.05.007. - DOI
    1. Arafat S.M.Y., Mali B., Akter H. Do Bangladeshi newspapers educate public while reporting suicide? A year round observation from content analysis of six national newspapers. Asian J. Psychiatry. 2020;48 doi: 10.1016/j.ajp.2019.101920. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Arendt F., Scherr S. Optimizing online suicide prevention: a search engine-based tailored approach. Health Commun. 2017;32:1403–1408. doi: 10.1080/10410236.2016.1224451. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Armstrong G., Vijayakumar L. Suicide in India: a complex public health tragedy in need of a plan. Lancet Public Health. 2018;3 doi: 10.1016/S2468-2667(18)30142-7. e459–e460. - DOI - PubMed