Bridgend, journalists and social networking

One of the things I want to look at on this blog is the way the news media, in particular the press, has covered the recent spate of suicides in Bridgend. Parents, relatives and people living in the area have recently said that they think media coverage of this has, in some way, glamourised suicide. Some have said they think the coverage may be responsible for the continuing suicides.

It's a sad story, overall. It raises lots of interesting points about journalistic ethics and about the effects that the media (and journalism) have on people's behaviour. I'd like to look at it over the next few weeks.

It's interesting that, when the story began to reach the national media, the press in particular began to point the finger at new media - in particular social networking sites like Bebo, MySpace and Facebook. For example, the Daily Mail ran with a big front page splash about 'The Internet Suicide Cult' back in January (they were responding to some remarks by a coroner investigating the deaths). The newspapers have a history of this - suggesting that new media technologies - from the net to video games - can affect behaviour (especially the behaviour of the young) in all sorts of interestingly problematic ways.

However, what's becoming apparent as people look at the Bridgend case is that it's the old media - basic newspaper reporting in fact, which may be part of the problem. The Media Guardian's columnist Peter Wilby looked at this on Monday (you'll need to register to read it). After having a pop at the Mail, he looked at academic research on this subject.

"Oxford University's centre for suicide research looked at 90 studies across the world. More than half had found evidence that suicides covered inthe media - whether in newspapers, films or TV news and drama - were followed by an increase in the number of cases. None had identified a fall."

Wilby talks about possible reasons for this. I'll post some more on this soon. But it's an interesting way into the whole debate about 'media effects'. A lot of research has been done over the years into trying to decide what effects media coverage (and journalism) have on the people who consume it. A lot of it is inconclusive - it's often hard to point to definite occasions where the media seems to have a clear, direct causal effect on the way someone behaves or thinks. But on the other hand, we all feel like it plays some sort of role... So we'll look at this over the next few weeks.