Suitsiidide kajastamine Eesti meedias
Date
2005
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Abstract
Description
The aim of this Bachelor’s thesis “Coverage of suicides in Estonian media” was to
analyze the coverage of suicides in Estonian media through three different suicide
cases and evaluate, to which extent is the coverage of suicides in Estonian media
coherent with the suggestions made by the World Health Organization (WHO).
Three largest daily newspapers, two local papers and one weekly were used as the
source for analysis. Three different suicide cases were selected for analysis: a
politician’s wife, a businessman and a schoolboy. 29 articles were analyzed, using a
combined method of critical discourse analysis and content analysis.
Since studies have proved that media has an important role in preventing suicides, the
research questions were posed based on the suggestions for media organizations by
WHO, which should be used for covering suicides.
The results of this research can be shortly summarized as following:
- Suicide method was mentioned in 18 articles out of 29, method has been described
in detail in 12 articles
- Almost all the articles presented suicide as a result of one certain reason
- The grief of relatives was shown in only one article
- Experts were interviewed in three articles
- None of the articles presented information about the warning signs of suicide or
helplines
- Suicide statistics was used in two cases, generally in correct form
- Suicide victims were not depicted in a heroic way
- Physical harm and evaluations to the suicide method were presented in case of
covering an unusual method (self-ignition
- Five suicide articles were published as a top news story, one article was published
on the front page
- Photos of the suicide victims were used in five articles, three of them in an
incorrect manner
The posed research question:
To which extent is the coverage of suicides in Estonian media coherent with the
suggestions made by the World Health Organization?
Proved the hypothesis:
Estonian media does generally not cover suicides in coherence with the
suggestions of World Health Organization.
It is important to specify: the content of suicide coverage is generally incoherent with
the suggestions of World Health Organization, the form of coverage (position of
articles in the paper, used photos) generally correspond to the suggestions.
Keywords
H Social Sciences (General), bakalaureusetööd