R U OK?Day Media Monitoring

R U OK?Day Broadcast Media Monitoring Study Snapshot

• The Hunter Institute of Mental Health, which manages Mindframe,

partnered with R U OK? in 2016 to evaluate the quality of broadcast

media reporting from last year’s campaign.

• The majority of media broadcasts during R U OK?Day 2015 scored

more than 90% in quality rating against the Mindframe guidelines

for reporting suicide.

• A similar study in 2008 (not related to R U OK?Day), recorded a

quality rating of around 75%.

• The latest results appear to show campaigns can improve

media reporting when working closely with Mindframe.

• Mindframe and R U OK? have worked together since 2010.

• R U OK? also plan to build on the findings, with improved

promotion of language use and types of help-seeking in the

media.

Type of content

0 50 100

TV

Radio

Type of Content for TV and Radio (%)

Quality ratings

Reports were consistent with Mindframe advice, including no use of:

Terms that sensationalise suicide and mental illness

Negative labels describing individuals experiencing suicide and mental illness

Images that may inadvertently glorify death.

No

Yes

Adding help-seeking information

Less than half of reports promoted help-seeking.

Yes

No

Use ‘committed’ suicide

Hardly any broadcasts stigmatised suicide by using the term ‘committed’ in their reports.

Sensationalist reporting

Almost 100% of reports were consistent with Mindframe.

Reporting correct statistics

Nearly all statistics reported were accurate, with just two instances where they were incorrect.

Yes

No

Yes

No

Methods and location

No

Yes Explicit description of suicide method

Descriptions of suicide method were rare, with only three broadcasts (3%) containing reference to explicit methods.

No

Yes

Specific details of suicide location

Reports containing the location were also uncommon, with less than 1% including specific details on suicide location.

Quality rating scale

Quality scores

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

Pro

po

rtio

n o

f b

road

cast

ite

ms

(%)

Number of dimensions consistent with Mindframe

TV

Radio

Factors associated with quality reporting

Logistic Regression indicated that reports were

significantly more likely to score high quality if they were:

Radio broadcasts

Did not reference celebrity mental health or suicide

Featured an R U OK? employee.

AcknowledgementThis study has been undertaken by the Hunter Institute of Mental Health in partnership with R U OK?

Broadcasts analysed for this study were provided courtesy of Isentia.