ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the literature and online discourse to explore the possibility that the Internet facilitates a normalization of suicide, and if so whether and under what circumstances it might encourage or provoke, and/or discourage and hedge against acts of self-destruction. Part of the effectiveness of the Internet in creating space for communities of affirmation derives from a certain imperviousness to unwelcome information. Shifting the focus from perturbation to communication in accounting for collective patterns of self-destruction, while raising the possibility of the formation of suicidal cohorts or communities, would give the new phenomena of Internet forums dedicated to suicide a privileged place as a possible cause of acts of self-destruction. But the Manichean dualism in Internet suicide research that sets the influence of effective online therapy against suicide advocacy is based on an unrealistic understanding of the actual values, discourse, and consequences for behavior of a great many suicide-oriented sites.
