Media representation of Suicide
Name:
Professor:
Course:
DATE:
, Media representation of Suicide
Unless one feels they are heading down a bottomless pit in terms of how their efforts,
dreams, and aspirations are not going as planned, we might not understand the plight people
undergo to contemplate suicide. Scholars of mental health have argued that it is fueled by
moments of depressive episodes, substance abuse, or as a result of a disorder. As the academic
world struggles to find solutions and minimize the high rates of suicides, media has not been left
behind in cutting short these efforts. For this paper, I took a New York Times story titled "Where
the Despairing Log On, and Learn Ways to Die," published on December 9th, 2022. As sad as
the situation is, media sensationalized the situation by rationalizing, glamourizing, and
demonizing it.
Media objectified suicide. Objectification refers to giving 'life' to an abstract concept or
phenomenon in a way that we can experience it through one or many of our senses. In this sense,
there was a representation of events in an emotive way and the personification of suicide which
rubberstamps suicide objectification (Armstrong et al., 2019). The description of the subject was
in a way that suicide resulted in pain for the victim, close friends, and family. However, two
levels of pain were highlighted. While the victim underwent physical pain, the family was
burdened with psychological affliction.
Through the lenses of Stuart Hall's theory of media representation, poor parenting that led
to suicide was objectified as stupid parenting. Such parenting was viewed as senseless and
thoughtless. Further, the post viewed suicide as a mysterious and contagious phenomenon and
that it was more of a mistake and should never happen. This was more so the case when it
involved young people and, in particular school-going young adults. While citing Coyle &
MacWhannell (2002), Akrivos (2015) opines that suicide was a mystery when young people,
Name:
Professor:
Course:
DATE:
, Media representation of Suicide
Unless one feels they are heading down a bottomless pit in terms of how their efforts,
dreams, and aspirations are not going as planned, we might not understand the plight people
undergo to contemplate suicide. Scholars of mental health have argued that it is fueled by
moments of depressive episodes, substance abuse, or as a result of a disorder. As the academic
world struggles to find solutions and minimize the high rates of suicides, media has not been left
behind in cutting short these efforts. For this paper, I took a New York Times story titled "Where
the Despairing Log On, and Learn Ways to Die," published on December 9th, 2022. As sad as
the situation is, media sensationalized the situation by rationalizing, glamourizing, and
demonizing it.
Media objectified suicide. Objectification refers to giving 'life' to an abstract concept or
phenomenon in a way that we can experience it through one or many of our senses. In this sense,
there was a representation of events in an emotive way and the personification of suicide which
rubberstamps suicide objectification (Armstrong et al., 2019). The description of the subject was
in a way that suicide resulted in pain for the victim, close friends, and family. However, two
levels of pain were highlighted. While the victim underwent physical pain, the family was
burdened with psychological affliction.
Through the lenses of Stuart Hall's theory of media representation, poor parenting that led
to suicide was objectified as stupid parenting. Such parenting was viewed as senseless and
thoughtless. Further, the post viewed suicide as a mysterious and contagious phenomenon and
that it was more of a mistake and should never happen. This was more so the case when it
involved young people and, in particular school-going young adults. While citing Coyle &
MacWhannell (2002), Akrivos (2015) opines that suicide was a mystery when young people,
