research: views and attitudes of journalism and public relations students on communicating about...

Views and attitudes regarding the reporting and communication about suicide held by journalism and

public relations students in Australia

Report prepared by Jaelea Skehan, Ross Tynan and Renate Thienel for the Hunter Institute of Mental Health and the Mindframe National Media Initiative.

About the research

• Within the suicide literature, there has been extensive research investigating the relationship between news reporting and suicide. This research has been used to develop evidence-based recommendations regarding how to safely report on suicide.

• There has been very little research, however, looking at how the media, public relations and communication professionals or students’ view these recommendations.

• This research aimed to measure the attitudes of journalism and public relations students towards the reporting of and professional communication about suicide; their previous exposure to suicide; and their attitude towards suicide in general.

About the research

• This research is complemented by further studies that assess the knowledge and attitudes of media professionals and public relations and communication professionals.

• The research has been approved by the University of Newcastle’s Human Research Ethics Committee, Approval No H-2014-0369.

• This is a summary report based on preliminary results, which have not yet been peer-reviewed. It has been developed for broader communication through the Mindframe National Media Initiative.

• Further analysis will be included as part of a peer-reviewed publication.

Acknowledgements

• This research forms part of Jaelea Skehan’s PhD study supervised by Professor Brian Kelly (University of Newcastle), Professor Jane Pirkis (University of Melbourne) and Associate Professor Myfanwy Maple (University of New England).

• The research was supported by a team of staff from the Hunter Institute of Mental Health, including Dr Ross Tynan, Dr Renate Thienel and Mr Marc Bryant.

• Universities in Australia and the project team working on the Mindframe National Media Initiative supported recruitment for this study.

The Australian context

• In Australia, evidence-based guidelines for media reporting of suicide have been developed and disseminated by the Hunter Institute of Mental Health under the Mindframe National Media Initiative (Mindframe).

• Mindframe is a comprehensive and multi-faceted strategy that targets media organisations and media professionals as well as the mental health and suicide prevention sectors, police, courts, film and television, and universities offering programs in journalism, communication and public relations. It also offers a StigmaWatch program delivered by SANE Australia.

• Mindframe provides a number of practical resources for universities offering journalism and public relations programs including case studies, lecture notes, student resources and other supporting material at www.mindframe-media.info

http://www.mindframe-media.info/

Research methodology

• People were eligible to participate in the research if they were: (a) over the age of 18 years; and (b) were currently studying journalism, communications or public relations at a university in Australia.

• The survey was promoted by the Hunter Institute of Mental Health and nominated champions from a number of universities.

• Participation was voluntary and all surveys were completed online. At the end of the survey, participants were provided with an option to go into a draw (with contact details entered into a separate independent survey) to win one of ten $50 vouchers.

The survey instrument included five sections:

1. Participant demographics, including age, gender, university, year of study;

2. A 20-item rating scale assessing participants’ level of agreement with statements about reporting of suicide (for journalism students) or professional communication about suicide (for public relations students) suicide;

3. The 16-item Stigma of Suicide Scale (SOSS);

4. Questions relating to participants’ personal and professional exposure to suicide;

5. Questions about participants’ prior exposure to the Mindframe program and resources.

Research methodology

PART A: Summary of results for journalism students

A1. Participant demographicsParticipants: 117 journalism students attempted the survey, of which 113 (97%) met the inclusion criteria.

Gender: 94 participants identified as female (83%), 18 identified as male (15%) and 1 (0.9%) did not complete the open field.

Culture: Two participants (1.8%) identified as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander.

Age: Most participants (92%) were under the age of 25 years- see Figure 1.

15%

83%

25 years or younger

26 - 35 years

36 - 45 years

46 - 55 years

56 - 64 years

65 years or older

Figure 1. Age of participants (%)

http://www.clipartsfree.net/svg/893-stick-man-vector.html

A1. Participant demographics Most participants were studying journalism at a Sydney University (UTS = 39%; USYD = 38%) – see Table 1.

Table 1. University where participants were studying journalism (n), n = 113.

University N

University of Technology Sydney (UTS) 44

University of Sydney (USYD) 43

Griffith University 5

Queensland University of Technology (QUT) 4

University of Newcastle (UoN) 3

University of Adelaide 3

Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) 2

Deakin University 1

1st

2nd

3rd

4th

Masters

PhD

Most participants were within their first (26%) or second (26%) year of study – see Figure 2.

Figure 2. Year of degree (%)

A2. Reporting of suicide

Journalism students were asked rate their level of agreement with a range of statements about reporting and communicating about suicide, using a 7-point Likert scale from strongly disagree to strongly agree.

• Tables 2 provides a summary of responses to 16 statements that relate to current evidence-informed recommendations provided through Mindframe, and the expected direction of responses based on the current recommendations, indicated by a green, yellow or red box.

• Table 3 provides a summary of responses to four more general statements about the frequency and value of reporting about suicide.

• To simplify the reporting of results, the strongly agree and agree as well as the strongly disagree and disagree categories were combined, with results in Table 2 and Table 3 presented on a 5-point scale.

A2. Reporting of suicide: Alignment with principles high (>70%)

Strongly Disagree

or Disagree*

Somewhat Disagree Neutral Somewhat

agreeStrongly agree or agree*

Journalists should ensure information about suicide (including suicide statistics) is accurate and confirmed.

2.0% 0% 0% 1%

The media should involve suicide prevention experts or services in any story about suicide. 2.0% 1.0% 2.0% 13.1%

Adding help-seeking information to stories about suicide is not helpful. 8.5% 5.6% 1.7% 4.3%

It is important to report about a suspected suicide quickly, stating it is a suicide or suspected suicide even if the cause of death has not yet been confirmed.

12.7% 4.9% 2.9% 4.9%

Table 2: Level of agreement with statements about reporting of suicide, with high (>70%), moderate (>50%) or low (<50%) alignment to Mindframe recommendations.

97.0%

81.8%

84.7%

74.5%

Strongly Disagree or Disagree*



Stories that involves people who have been suicidal in the past can be helpful. 4.0% 3.0% 13.0% 17.0%

People in the media can be adversely impacted when reporting on suicide. 3.1% 4.1% 15.5% 25.8%

The best time to interview people bereaved by suicide is soon after the death. 13.8% 17.1% 6.7% 1.7%

Reports should show images of an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander person who has died by suicide.

10.3% 16.5% 2.1% 3.1%

A2. Reporting of suicide: Alignment with principles moderate (>50%)

63.0%

51.5%

62.6%

68.0%

A2. Reporting of suicide: Alignment with principles low (<50%)




Reports should include the location of a suicide death in public communication, especially if it occurs in a well-known location.

17.5% 24.7% 9.3% 7.2%

If a celebrity dies by suicide, then it is important to report the death in detail. 18.3% 9.2% 14.7% 9.2%

When reporting on a story that involves suicide, it is appropriate to use the word “committed suicide”.

10.1% 23.2% 11.1% 37.4%

41.2%

48.7%

18.2%

A2. Reporting of suicide: Alignment with principles low (<50%)




Suicide deaths should always be reported by the media. 20.0% 6.4% 20.0% 32.7%

Reporting on individual deaths by suicide can increase the risk of suicide in other members of the community.

28.4% 8.8% 10.8% 32.4%

Stories about suicide should not use the word ‘suicide’ in the headline, lead or online search terms.

26.6% 18.3% 16.5% 18.3%

Reports about suicide should not mention specific details about the method of suicide. 10.9% 8.2% 7.3% 24.5%

Suicide deaths should only be reported when there is a clear public interest to do so. 17.0% 6.0% 8.0% 21.0%

* Strongly disagree/disagree and strongly agree/agree options have been combined in this report.

20.9%

19.6%

20.2%

41.9%

48.0%

A2. Reporting of suicide: general




Having a regular ‘suicide toll’ in the media would help reduce suicide. 51.5% 16.5% 19.6% 9.3% 3.1%

Reporting on the broader issue of suicide will help to reduce suicide. 4.0% 4.0% 9.0% 22.0% 61.0%

Media should report on suicide more often than they currently do. 18.7% 11.2% 20.6% 25.2% 24.3%

Reporting on individual deaths by suicide will help to reduce suicide. 23.0% 23.0% 34.0% 14.0% 5.0%


Table 3: Level of agreement with general statements about reporting of suicide.

A3. Stigma of Suicide

Respondents (n=224) were asked to complete the 16-item Stigma Of Suicide Scale (SOSS), that measures three underlying constructs: Stigma (8 items); Depression/Isolation (4 Items); Glorification/Normalisation (4 items).

Participants were asked to rate how much they agreed with a series of descriptions of people who take their own lives (suicide) on a 5-point Likert Scale ranging from ‘Strongly disagree’ to ‘Strongly agree’ and a mean score (between 1 and 5) was calculated for each construct as indicated in Table 4.

• For the Stigma construct higher scores indicate higher levels of stigma.

• On the Depression/Isolation scale, higher scores indicate respondents are more likely to attribute suicide to depression/isolation.

• On the Glorification/Normalisation scale, higher scores indicate that respondents are more likely to glorify or normalise suicide.

Stigma Isolation/ Depression

Glorification/ Normalisation

Journalism students (this research-unpublished) 1.73 3.85 2.03

Public relations students (unpublished) 1.79 4.09 1.98

Public relations professionals (unpublished) 1.58 3.67 1.98

Journalism professionals (unpublished) 1.61 3.54 1.91

Australian community* (published research) 2.19 4.11 2.45

Medical students* (published research) 2.06 3.50 1.85

Table 4: Mean Stigma of Suicide construct scores and comparative research.

In general, journalism students had comparatively low scores on the stigma construct, and higher scores on the depression construct, based on responses from other published (and unpublished) research, however caution should be exercised when comparing different research samples.

A3. Stigma of Suicide

A4. Exposure to suicide (personal)Half of the participants who answered the question (n=97) reported having known someone who died by suicide, with 35% of these people reporting that they were ‘close’ to at least one person who died by suicide.

Figure 4. Have you been close to someone who died by suicide (%)?Figure 3. Do you know anyone who died by suicide (%)?

0%10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%

100%

Yes

No

0%10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%

100%

Yes

No

A4. Exposure to suicide (university studies)

YES

NO

Coverage of reporting on suicide was most commonly reported to occur in tutorials (>50%), but also discussed in lectures and class assessments. Participants could select more than one option – see Figure 5. Guest lectures

Assignment

Usual lectures

Tutorial

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60%

Figure 5. Exposure to reporting of suicide and guidelines (%)?

YES

NO

* Participants could select more than one option

Not importa

nt

Somewhat importa

nt

Importa

nt

Very importa

nt0%5%

10%15%20%25%30%35%40%45%

Not relevant Somewhat relevant

Relevant Very relevant0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40%

45%

A4. Exposure to suicide (university studies)

Figure 6. Importance of university coverage (%)? Figure 7. Relevance of university coverage (%)?

Participants felt that university exposure to reporting on suicide was very important (see Figure 6) and at least somewhat relevant (see Figure 7) to the journalism course.

A5. Awareness of Mindframe resources

YES

NO

Of the participants who were aware of Mindframe, they reported exposure via the journalism course (53%) or through a website search (47%). People could select more than one option – see Figure 8.

Journalism/Communications course

Guest lecture at university

Work in the media

Social media

Website search

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60%

Figure 8. Exposure at University to Mindframe principles and resources (%)?

PART B: Summary of results for public relations students

B1. Participant demographicsParticipants: 103 participants attempted the survey, of which 93 (90%) met the inclusion criteria.

Gender: 81 participants identified as female (87%), 12 identified as male (13%).

Figure 9. Age of participants (%)

Culture: No participants identified as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander.

Age: Most participants (95%) were under the age of 25 years – see Figure 9.

13%

87%

25 years or younger

26 - 35 years

36 - 45 years

http://www.clipartsfree.net/svg/893-stick-man-vector.html

B2. Communication about suicidePublic relations students were asked rate their level of agreement with a range of statements about reporting and communicating about suicide, using a 7-point Likert scale from strongly disagree to strongly agree.

• Table 5 provides a summary of responses to 15 statements that relate to current evidence-informed recommendations provided through the Mindframe Initiative in Australia, and the expected direction of responses based on the current recommendations, indicated by a green, yellow or red box.

• Table 6 provides a summary of responses to five more general statements about the frequency and value of reports and professional communication about suicide.

• To simplify the reporting of results, the strongly agree and agree as well as the strongly disagree and disagree categories were combined, with results in Table 1 and Table 2 presented on a 5-point scale.

B2. Communication about suicide: Alignment with principles high (>70%)

Strongly Disagree

or Disagree*



Public relations and communication professionals should ensure information about suicide (including suicide statistics) is accurate and confirmed.

0% 0% 1.2% 4.8%

Public relations and communication professionals should involve suicide prevention experts or services in any communication or campaign about suicide.

0.0% 0.0% 4.7% 10.6%

Adding help-seeking information to communication involving suicide is not helpful. 9.5% 7.1% 4.8% 1.2%

Table 5: Level of agreement with statements about communication and reporting about suicide, with high (>70%), moderate (>50%) or low (<50%) alignment to Mindframe recommendations.

94.0%

84.7%

77.4%




It is important to issue public communication about a suspected suicide quickly, stating it is a suicide or suspected suicide even if the cause of death has not yet been confirmed.

17.4% 11.6% 4.7% 3.5%

Public communication that involves people who have been suicidal in the past can be helpful.

0.0% 3.5% 11.6% 23.3%

People working in public relations and communication can be adversely impacted when reporting on suicide.

0.0% 2.4% 14.6% 37.1%

B2. Communication about suicide: Alignment with principles moderate (>50%)

62.8%

61.6%

51.2%

B2. Communication about suicide: Alignment with principles moderate (>50%)




The best time to interview/communicate professionally to people bereaved by suicide is soon after the death.

19.5% 9.2% 9.2% 2.3%

There are no specific cultural considerations to apply when communicating about suicide.

21.7% 6.0% 8.4% 8.4%

Professional communication, including media reports, about suicide should not mention specific details about the method of suicide.

4.4% 11.0% 15.4% 18.7%

59.8%

55.4%

50.5%

B2. Communication about suicide: Alignment with principles low (<50%)




Suicide deaths should always be reported by the media. 24.2% 13.2% 27.5% 7.7%

Reporting on individual deaths by suicide can increase the risk of suicide in other members of the community.

22.1% 15.1% 16.3% 27.9%

When developing digital content that involved suicide, public relations and communication professionals should follow similar guidelines to those used by the media.

15.6% 5.6% 16.7% 25.6%


27.5%

18.6%

36.7%

B2. Communication about suicide: Alignment with principles low (<50%)




It is important to include the location of a suicide death in public communication, especially if it occurs in a well-known location.

20.5% 15.7% 14.5% 7.4%

If a celebrity dies by suicide, then it is important to communicate about the death in detail.

24.4% 13.3% 14.4% 7.8%

When communicating about an issue that involves suicide, it is appropriate to use the word “committed suicide”.

14.1% 37.6% 20.0% 20.0%


41.0%

40.0%

8.2%

B2. Communication about suicide




Public relations and communication professionals have an important role to play in suicide prevention. (n=263)

0.0% 1.2% 12.8% 25.6% 60.5%

Reporting on individual deaths by suicide will help to reduce suicide. (n=262) 33.7% 15.1% 26.7% 15.1% 9.3%

Reporting on the broader issue of suicide will help to reduce suicide. (n=262) 2.3% 1.2% 9.3% 30.2% 57.0%

Having a regular ‘suicide toll’ in the media would help reduce suicide. (n=260) 45.1% 24.4% 17.1% 6.1% 7.3%

Media should report suicide more often than they currently do. (n=268) 29.9% 9.2% 14.9% 20.7% 25.3%


Table 6: Level of agreement with general statements about communication and reporting about suicide.

B3. Stigma of SuicideStigma was measured using the 16-item Stigma Of Suicide Scale (SOSS). The SOSS scale measures three underlying constructs: Stigma (8 items); Depression/Isolation (4 Items); Glorification/Normalisation (4 items).

Participants were asked to rate how much they agreed with a series of 16 single-worded items describing someone who takes their own life (suicide). Agreement was measured on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from ‘Strongly disagree’ to ‘Strongly agree’. Mean agreement scores for each construct are shown on Table 7.

• For the Stigma construct, higher scores indicate higher levels of stigma.

• On the Depression/Isolation scale, higher scores indicate respondents are more likely to attribute suicide to depression/isolation.

• On the Glorification/Normalisation scale, higher scores indicate that respondents are more likely to glorify or normalise suicide.

Stigma Isolation/ Depression

Glorification/ Normalisation

Public relations students (this research; unpublished) 1.79 4.09 1.98

Journalism students (unpublished) 1.73 3.85 2.03

Public relations professionals (unpublished) 1.58 3.67 1.98

Media professionals (unpublished) 1.61 3.54 1.91

Australian community* (published research) 2.19 4.11 2.45

Medical students* (published research) 2.06 3.50 1.85

Table 7: Mean Stigma of Suicide construct scores and comparative research.

In general, public relations students had comparatively low scores on the stigma and glorification constructs, and higher scores on the depression construct, compared to other research, however caution should be exercised when comparing different research samples.

B3. Stigma of Suicide

0%10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%

100%

0%10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%

100%

B4. Exposure to suicide (personal)More than a half of participants (58%) who provided a response to this question (n=81) reported that they had known someone who died by suicide. Of these, almost one-third (32%) indicated that they were ‘close’ to at least one person who died by suicide.

Figure 11. Have you been close to someone who died by suicide (%)?Figure 10. Do you know anyone who died by suicide (%)?

YES

NO

YES

NO

B5. Exposure to suicide (university studies)

YES

NO

Usual lectures

Guest lectures

Tutorial

Assignment

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40%

Participants reported that professional communication about suicide was most commonly covered in tutorials (38%), but also discussed in lectures and class assessments. Participants could select more than one option – see Figure 12.

Figure 12. Exposure to communication about suicide and reporting guidelines (%)?

YES

NO

Participants felt that university coverage of professional communication about suicide was both important (see Figure 13) and relevant (see Figure 14) to the public relations course.

Not importa

nt

Somewhat importa

nt

Importa

nt

Very Importa

nt0%

500%1000%1500%2000%2500%3000%3500%4000%4500%

Not relevant Somewhat relevant

relevant Very relevant0%

500%

1000%

1500%

2000%

2500%

3000%

3500%

4000%

4500%

5000%

Figure 13. Importance of university coverage (%)? Figure 14. Relevance of university coverage (%)?

B5. Exposure to suicide (university studies)

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