ABSTRACT
Suicide is a serious problem worldwide but shows significant differences between national/regional suicide rates. Socio-cultural contexts, economic conditions, climate, religions, psychiatric morbidity, accuracy of the registration of suicide, availability of lethal methods, and the availability of the social/health care system have been taken into account. Ecological studies have provided evidence to demonstrate that mass media, especially prominent news reports of suicide, can facilitate the increase in suicide rates at the population level. Therefore, when there is no national surveillance system for homicide-suicide, they suggested that media surveillance can be an alternative approach to monitor the incidence. The media's selective reporting patterns are not surprising, given that rare events are more newsworthy. Certainly, we also noticed different findings between these studies and will report the differences. Nevertheless, the similarities of media representation cross-nationally suggest that there are common patterns in terms of the media's selective reporting of suicide.
