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
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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.
article author(s)
Robert Cialdini
Dr. Cialdini is one of the most cited names in Social Psychology. He received his Ph .D. from the University of North Carolina and his post doctoral...more