Mördande journalistik?

Suicide is a controversial subject when it comes to media reporting in Sweden. Often journalists tend to avoid the subject out of fear of spawning more suicides among its audience. The notion that giving attention to suicides in media will spawn even more suicides is called the werther effect. Recently we have seen a change in trend in Swedish media when it comes to suicide. The last ten years the media has started to give more attention to suicide cases than before. Often the reports are focused on celebrity suicides, but even specific suicides committed by commoners have seen its share of attention. In this work, the authors are investigating this new trend in Swedish media reporting. More specifically this study is committed to investigating how journalists report when it comes to suicide. In parallel to this, the study also tries to investigate whether there is any substance in fearing the werther effect.