The Media: Carriers of Contagious Information

By no means am I suggesting that the media should be censored in the reporting of news of genuine value. But, media representatives can reduce the negative societal consequences of events such as panics and suicides by reducing the repetitiousness and sensationalism of their coverage. Otherwise, they may be guilty of two sins: distorting and intensifying the impact of these events.

References

Cialdini, R. B. (2001). Influence: Science and practice. (4th Ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

Gracian, B. (1649/1945). The art of worldly wisdom. New York: Charles Thomas.

MacKay, C. (1841/1932). Popular delusions and the madness of crowds. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.

Phillips, D. P. (1989). Recent advances in suicidology: The study of imitative suicide. In R. F. W. Diekstra, R. Maris, S. Platt, A. Schmidtke, & G. Sonneck (Eds.), Suicide and its prevention: The role of attitude and imitation (pp. 299-312). Leiden: E. J. Brill.

Schmidtke, A., & Hafner, H. (1988). The Werther effect after television films: New evidence for an old hypothesis. Psychological Medicine, 18, 665-676.

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