Mackenzie Parker Source #4

Question: How does stigma affect the rates of suicide and will reducing the sigma be beneficial?

Citation: Batterham, Philip J., Alison L. Calear, and Helen Christensen. "The Stigma of Suicide Scale." Psychometric Properties and Correlates of the Stigma of Suicide 34.13-21 (2012): n. pag. EBSCO. Web. 8 Mar. 2015.

This article talked about how social stigma plays a huge role in suicide and what can be done to prevent it. The author argues that decreasing the stigma will have a positive effect on those with mental illnesses, but caution need to be taken on how to reduce the stigma.  He argues that using media to reduce the stigma can work, if done properly. When going anti-stigma campaigns on social media, certain factors need to be considered such as characteristics of both the audience and the sender, as well as ensuring that these campaigns are not normalizing suicide. A way this author suggested doing this is broadcasting these campaigns to a smaller and a more well defined audience. The author also talked about how journalists need to cover these suicide stories and not be afraid to address actual problems within society without being criticized.

This source did a really good job of answering my question as to how the stigma can be dissolved. I wanted to gain more information on peoples opinions as to how this can be done and this article did a nice job of showing my his perspective. This article helped me to understand differ net methods that can be used to decrease the stigma, and I agree with it when he talks about how carefully this needs to be done in the media. I also agree with it when it talks about how if suicide prevention campaigns are going to go public, these campaigns need to have a well defined audience in a specific region where suicide rates re high in order to not normalize suicide. This article also also help me to think about how journalists are covering these stories. Are they playing safe when reporting and not giving these cases enough credit? I think it is interesting to see how these cases are being told to the public and if these methods are hurting or helping the stigma.

My second source argues that we should not be putting a big emphasis on media to host anti suicide campaigns in fear that it will normalize these feelings.  His argument is understandable because if we are putting these campaigns on live television for all to see, it will do more hurt than harm. This source disagrees with the second course. This source argues that it is important to use the media as a way to use campaigns, it just need to be projected to a selected audience. I agree with this source because media is a great way to share information, and if we can use this in a positive way to help people, then it definitely should be done. However, it needs to be done in a very careful way to ensure that suicide is not being normalized.

In my next source, I would like to explore the area  of how journalists are reporting suicide cases. I would like to hear different  perspectives as to if the method used is actually increasing or decreasing the stigma around suicide, or it it has no effect. I would think that it would play a major role in shaping the social stigma, I would just like to find out to what extent and how journalists can potentially change their methods from touching on the problem to actually addressing this social concern. In addition, I am going to keep researching different stigmas go along with suicide and how these different methods of getting rid of the stigma will either help or hurt it.