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Copycat effect 14 times more likely after celebrity suicide

March 17, 2003

The copycat effect is 14 times more likely after a celebrity suicide, reveals an analysis in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. And newspaper reports are more powerful than television coverage of a suicide.

The researchers used statistical analyses to re-assess some 293 findings from 42 published studies investigating the impact of suicide stories reported in the media.

Studies of celebrity suicides were more than 14 times as likely to find a copycat effect, while studies of real life, as opposed to fictional suicides, were more than four times as likely to uncover a copycat effect.

The researchers point to previously published evidence, which shows that suicide rates were 12% higher in the month of Marilyn Monroe's suicide in 1962.

The celebrity suicide is likely to spark a much greater degree of identification than stories about the suicide of other people, they say. The theory is that if a rich and famous person can commit suicide, what hope is there for someone who feels suicidal, but who has neither fame nor fortune?

The analysis found that, in general, the greater the media coverage of a suicide, the greater were the chances of a copycat effect, but there were differences according to the medium. Research of televised suicides was 82% less likely than research of newspaper coverage to indicate a copycat effect.

The authors suggest that TV coverage typically lasts less than 20 seconds, but newspaper reports contain more detail, and can be saved, re-read, or displayed, allowing the content to be memorised.

The authors highlight successful attempts in Switzerland and Austria to change the quantity and quality of news reporting on suicides, and suggest that cutting the amount of media coverage is likely to be the most factor in the prevention of copycat suicides.

British Medical Journal (BMJ)

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