The swedish print media reports of suicide : A quantitative comparison between evening- and morning newspapers

In this study suicide reporting in the swedish evening- and morning papers was compared during a six month coverage. The purpose of this study was to see what similarities and differences that existed in the two different types of newspapers. The content of suicide reporting are important given that several studies show that suicide reporting can influence copycat suicides, where people who take part of the media content can be influenced to copy a reported suicide. A quantitative content analysis was used over six months of suicides articles in the newspapers Aftonbladet, Expressen, Dagens Nyheter and Svenska Dagbladet. The results showed that evening and the morning papers in many ways has similar suicide reporting, the differences that existed was that evening papers to a lesser extent than the morning papers reported on informative articles and evening papers has more articles about suicide events. Evening papers have more frequent articles about suicidal thoughts, and widely known persons attempted to commit suicide, than the morning papers. Both morning and evening newspapers have more cases of suicide where non-famous people were reported. Results from previous studies shows that newspapers report more frequently about suicide methods who are sensational and deviant than if the methods that are commonly used in real life. The picture is consistent with the results from this study, which the newspapers do not describe reality but portray it. Dagens Nyheter is a magazine who stand out in parts of the results. The newspaper has a lower suicide reporting and give suicidal content less space. When the paper touches the subject, it is usually to educate or provide information. Common to all the newspapers in the sample is that they usually monitor suicide by suicidal events