THE PROBLEM OF MEDIA INFLUENCE ON SUICIDES: EVOLUTION OF EXPLANATORY MODELS AND UKRAINIAN REALITIES

Abstract

The problem importance is determined by the global dynamic growth of suicides and the need for special attention to the suicidal tendency among armed people (military personnel, combatants, veterans), especially in the context of media effects during the hybrid war. The dynamics of proposed explanatory models explaining the suicide descriptions by traditional media (periodicals and television) and their impact on vulnerable audience over the 40-year period from the 1980’s to the present has been analyzed. Different methods substantiating such impact have been considered – from the early statistical procedures of correlation analysis to various experiments and longitudinal cohort studies. The historical periods concerning the subject matter and key models explaining the impact of «media suicides» on the audience at different times are singled out. The conformity of explanatory models (suggestive-imitation, media cover, identification, multi-factor) are checked for the analysis of the situation with suicides in Ukraine. A cumulative model is proposed and implemented for analyzing of the media suicide impact, in the context of the war over the past 5 years, on the suicide dynamics for the most vulnerable category of adolescents. It was proposed on the base of secondary analysis of official data of the State Statistics Service of Ukraine on mortality due to self-harm. The most vulnerable category is boys aged of 10–15, which can be considered as the most affected by the media hype about «deadly quests» in 2017. The article proposes a conceptual model of media literacy as a factor supporting a person’s psychological well-being and confronting suicidal tendency growing during the hybrid war. The limitations and prospects for further research, tasks for the improvement of the suicide prevention system in Ukraine are discussed.