4 ms·

People have a knee-jerk reaction that publishing photos glorifies said person. So to many, the journalists are glorifying the killer and not the victims.

Voloskaya 7y ago
How is it a 'knee-jerk reaction' exactly? It seems to me it is well known that many of the perpetrators indeed do it in the hope of being glorified and being talked about.
- jjeaff 7y ago
  Well they are definitely talked about. But that's not what glorified means. They are villified (rightfully so). But perhaps being famous for any reason is their goal.
philwelch 7y ago
It’s not a “knee-jerk reaction”; it’s established science that publicizing mass shooters (and even comparing their death tolls, as some media outlets do) leads to media contagion (ie copycat behavior).
darkpuma 7y ago
> "Abstract: Fatal crashes of private, business and corporate-executive airplanes have increased after publicized murder-suicides. The more publicity given to a murder-suicide, the more crashes occurred. The increase in plane crashes occurred primarily in states where the murder-suicides were publicized. These findings suggest that murder-suicide stories trigger subsequent murder-suicides, some of which are disguised as airplane crashes." Phillips, David P. “Airplane Accident Fatalities Increase Just After Newspaper Stories About Murder and Suicide.” Science, vol. 201, no. 4357, 1978, pp. 748–750. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1746810. (https://sci-hub.se/10.1126/science.201.4357.748 https://sci-hub.se/10.1126/science.201.4357.748)
- b_tterc_p 7y ago
  This sounds pretty absurd... I don’t think I believe their results.
  - darkpuma 7y ago
    What's so absurd about it? We know that murder-suicides happen, that's a well established phenomena. We know that murder-suicides committed by pilots who crash their airplanes happen as well. That's well documented, with Germanwings Flight 9525 being maybe the most infamous example. Furthermore, doesn't it make a lot of sense that some portion of plane crashes attributed to pilot error might in fact be murder-suicides? That makes sense to me; many believe Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 was a murder-suicide, but concrete evidence for that is missing. Of course if some portion of fatal plane crashes could be murder-suicides without any suicide note or other proof, then the same could be expected for lethal car crashes too, right? A suicidal person drives their car into the opposing lane, or into a tree or down into a river without leaving any suicide note. That could happen too. In fact a subsequent study found such an effect: > "Tarde and other classical sociologists paid a great deal of attention to the concepts of imitation and suggestion, but these concepts have been virtually ignored in modern sociology. This paper presents new findings indication that imitation and suggestion have a powerful have impact on social behavior: Three days after a publicized suicide, automobile fatalities increase by 31%. The more the suicide is publicized, the more the automobile fatalies increase. The age of the drivers is significantly correlated with the age of the person described in the suicide story. Single-car accidents increase more than other types just after the publicized suicide. After persentation of these and related findings, the paper discusses some ways in which the concepts of suggestion and imitation can be incorporated into sociological theory." Phillips, David P. “Suicide, Motor Vehicle Fatalities, and the Mass Media: Evidence Toward a Theory of Suggestion.” American Journal of Sociology, vol. 84, no. 5, 1979, pp. 1150–1174. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2778220. (http://sci-hub.se/10.1086/226904 http://sci-hub.se/10.1086/226904)
b_tterc_p 7y ago
I get that we don’t want to glorify killers, but I don’t see why we want to instead show victims
tinus_hn 7y ago
So what do you think about the strategy to emphasize the names of the victims instead of granting the killer notoriety?

Voloskaya 7y ago

How is it a 'knee-jerk reaction' exactly? It seems to me it is well known that many of the perpetrators indeed do it in the hope of being glorified and being talked about.

jjeaff 7y ago
Well they are definitely talked about. But that's not what glorified means. They are villified (rightfully so). But perhaps being famous for any reason is their goal.

philwelch 7y ago

It’s not a “knee-jerk reaction”; it’s established science that publicizing mass shooters (and even comparing their death tolls, as some media outlets do) leads to media contagion (ie copycat behavior).

darkpuma 7y ago

> "Abstract: Fatal crashes of private, business and corporate-executive airplanes have increased after publicized murder-suicides. The more publicity given to a murder-suicide, the more crashes occurred. The increase in plane crashes occurred primarily in states where the murder-suicides were publicized. These findings suggest that murder-suicide stories trigger subsequent murder-suicides, some of which are disguised as airplane crashes." Phillips, David P. “Airplane Accident Fatalities Increase Just After Newspaper Stories About Murder and Suicide.” Science, vol. 201, no. 4357, 1978, pp. 748–750. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1746810. (https://sci-hub.se/10.1126/science.201.4357.748 https://sci-hub.se/10.1126/science.201.4357.748)

b_tterc_p 7y ago
This sounds pretty absurd... I don’t think I believe their results.
- darkpuma 7y ago
  What's so absurd about it? We know that murder-suicides happen, that's a well established phenomena. We know that murder-suicides committed by pilots who crash their airplanes happen as well. That's well documented, with Germanwings Flight 9525 being maybe the most infamous example. Furthermore, doesn't it make a lot of sense that some portion of plane crashes attributed to pilot error might in fact be murder-suicides? That makes sense to me; many believe Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 was a murder-suicide, but concrete evidence for that is missing. Of course if some portion of fatal plane crashes could be murder-suicides without any suicide note or other proof, then the same could be expected for lethal car crashes too, right? A suicidal person drives their car into the opposing lane, or into a tree or down into a river without leaving any suicide note. That could happen too. In fact a subsequent study found such an effect: > "Tarde and other classical sociologists paid a great deal of attention to the concepts of imitation and suggestion, but these concepts have been virtually ignored in modern sociology. This paper presents new findings indication that imitation and suggestion have a powerful have impact on social behavior: Three days after a publicized suicide, automobile fatalities increase by 31%. The more the suicide is publicized, the more the automobile fatalies increase. The age of the drivers is significantly correlated with the age of the person described in the suicide story. Single-car accidents increase more than other types just after the publicized suicide. After persentation of these and related findings, the paper discusses some ways in which the concepts of suggestion and imitation can be incorporated into sociological theory." Phillips, David P. “Suicide, Motor Vehicle Fatalities, and the Mass Media: Evidence Toward a Theory of Suggestion.” American Journal of Sociology, vol. 84, no. 5, 1979, pp. 1150–1174. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2778220. (http://sci-hub.se/10.1086/226904 http://sci-hub.se/10.1086/226904)

b_tterc_p 7y ago

I get that we don’t want to glorify killers, but I don’t see why we want to instead show victims

tinus_hn 7y ago

So what do you think about the strategy to emphasize the names of the victims instead of granting the killer notoriety?