Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Mental Health
Date Submitted: Dec 19, 2020
Date Accepted: Apr 15, 2021
Assessing Suicide Reporting on Social Media According to the WHO Guidelines: A Content Analysis Study of Ten Chinese Mainstream Publishers
ABSTRACT
Background:
Previous studies have shown that suicide reporting in mainstream media has a significant impact on suicidal behaviors (e.g., irresponsible suicide reporting can trigger imitative suicide). Nowadays, traditional mainstream media are increasingly using social media platforms to disseminate information on public-related topics, including health. However, there is little empirical research on how mainstream media portrays suicide on social media platforms and the quality of their coverage.
Objective:
This study aims to explore the characteristics and quality of suicide reporting by mainstream publishers via social media in China.
Methods:
Via the application programming interface of the social media accounts of 10 Chinese mainstream publishers (e.g., People’s Daily and Beijing News), we obtained 2366 suicide reporting. This study conducted content analysis to demonstrate the characteristics and quality of suicide reporting. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines, we assessed the quality of suicide reporting by indicators of harmful information or helpful information.
Results:
Chinese mainstream publishers preferred to report on suicide caused by conflict (e.g., family conflicts) on their social media, and underreported suicide in older adults and rural areas. Harmful reporting practices were common (e.g., 54.61% of the reports containing suicide-related words in the headline and 49.54% having disclosed suicide victims’ images.) Helpful reporting practices were very limited (e.g., less than 0.1% reports having provided direct information about support programs.)
Conclusions:
The suicide reporting of mainstream publishers on social media in China broadly had low adherence to the WHO guidelines. We suggest developing national suicide reporting guidelines that apply to social media. By effectively playing their separate roles, we believe that social media practitioners, health institutions, social organizations, and the general public can endeavor to promote responsible suicide reporting in the Chinese social media environment.
Citation
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Copyright
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