Department of Social Work and Social Administration, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China.
J Affect Disord. 2012 Dec 10;141(2-3):270-5. doi: 10.1016/j.jad.2012.03.036. Epub 2012 May 17.
The mass media are often criticized for oversimplifying the causes of suicide and overlooking some of the risk factors. However, there is a lack of empirical evidence to support this assertion. The study aims to examine the accuracy of news reports in Hong Kong (HK) and in particular whether or not such reports stereotype victims according to gender and suicide method.
Data from a case-control psychological autopsy (PA) study of 150 HK suicides were utilized. The reports of the PA cases from five major HK newspapers were collected and reviewed to identify whether or not there was a match in terms of the cases' profile and risk factors.
The age, gender, and method of the suicides were largely reported correctly (>70%) but accounts of risk factors were seldom accurate (<46%). No significant difference was found between tabloid- and non-tabloid-type newspapers' accuracy. Media stereotyping of gender-specific suicide and charcoal-burning suicide was identified.
The study was based on a HK sample so the findings are not necessarily applicable elsewhere.
The HK mass media generally demonstrated poor accuracy in reporting suicide risk factors. Their reporting was also problematic in terms of stereotyping gender- and method-specific suicides. Clinical practitioners should be alerted to these findings when working with the media. They can also adopt this novel usage of PA data to extract further information from other PA studies and thereby broaden the investigation of reporting accuracy and stereotyping of suicide to more diverse social contexts.
大众媒体经常因过于简化自杀原因和忽视一些风险因素而受到批评。然而，缺乏经验证据来支持这一说法。本研究旨在检查香港新闻报道的准确性，特别是这些报道是否根据性别和自杀方式对受害者进行刻板印象。
利用来自香港 150 例自杀的病例对照心理解剖（PA）研究的数据。从五家主要的香港报纸中收集并审查了 PA 案例的报道，以确定案例的个人资料和风险因素是否相符。
自杀者的年龄、性别和方法大多被正确报道（>70%），但风险因素的报道很少准确（<46%）。小报和非小报类型的报纸的准确性没有显著差异。确定了媒体对特定性别自杀和烧炭自杀的刻板印象。
该研究基于香港样本，因此研究结果不一定适用于其他地方。
香港大众媒体在报道自杀风险因素方面通常准确性较差。他们的报道在性别和方法特定自杀的刻板印象方面也存在问题。临床医生在与媒体合作时应注意这些发现。他们还可以采用这种新颖的 PA 数据用法，从其他 PA 研究中提取更多信息，从而将对报道准确性和自杀刻板印象的调查扩展到更多样化的社会背景。
