Why are more and more suicides being portrayed in films and on TV?
Image via Wikipedia For years, the entertainment industry has laughed off warnings from Christians and others about the link between depictions of sex, violence, and nihilism in the media and what happens in the real world. They dismiss critics like you and me by saying young people make their own choices and can clearly distinguish between what they see on screen with what goes on in their own lives. But common sense, experience, and studies show this isn’t necessarily the case. For instance, news outlets for years have voluntarily adhered to strict reporting standards concerning suicide, because the evidence of copycat suicides is so clear and uncontroversial. One academic stu dy spoke of “the need to actively restrain reporting of suicides to decrease the imitation effect.” Well, what about when suicide is dramatized on television or the silver screen? Here, the evidence has been less clear, but according to a new report by the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of