Customer Reviews

The Copycat Effect: How the Media and Popular Culture Trigger the Mayhem in Tomorrow's Headlines

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Loren Coleman's "The Copycat Effect" is a well researched and compelling account of how media accounts of suicide trigger off further deaths. Coleman, a well known and respected authority on suicides and the author of "Suicide Clusters" goes into exhaustive detail and carefully documents the phenomenon of copycat suicides, giving examples from Ancient World up to the Kurt Cobain, Columbine and "The Deerhunter".

After reading the extensive documentation that Coleman provides there can be no further doubt of the existence of the suicide copycat effect. What is interesting about Coleman's account is that he never descends into a polemic about media violence and it is clear that the media does not "cause" violence, but rather triggers off these occurrences in susceptible individuals.

The most intriguing part of "The Copycat Effect" is the penultimate chapter where Coleman begins to explore what he calls the magnetism of milieu and moment, delving into why certain places and times attract suicides. This "twilight language" once elucidated has the potential to explain why hundreds of people have completed suicide from the Golden Gate Bridge while ignoring the Bay Bridge and why suicides take place on particular dates.

Highly recommended!

The role and function of our modern day mass media have often been discussed, but never before have the effects on our society, the way we behave and react, been explained in such crystal clear fashion. While the book gives irrefutable evidence that the darker side of our society is intertwined with the way we describe it in our media, it also helps to come to terms with this mechanism. Clearly, understanding is the first step on the road to betterment, and as such this book is highly recommended.

I was expecting more from this title, especially considering the good reviews it got here, but frankly it seems to fail both on the level of entertaining reading and as an academic essay. Within the first couple of chapters it's already obvious that he's just listing deaths and assorted facts one after another in a really repetitious way. Over and over I wished I could just tell the guy, "We get it, yeah, this person killed himself like the last 50 people killed themselves, now get on with it." But the primary problem with the book is that it links media reports of suicides and killings to other suicides and killings without adequately considering that mentally unbalanced people are just as likely to take drastic and mentally unstable actions even without these news stories -- just at some other time and some other way. If it's not some movie or media report it's from reading Shakespeare or the Bible. Nuts do crazy things, and they're going to pick whatever captures their attention. You can't ban everything. A long list of deaths doesn't prove the argument the author is trying to make, but it appears he hopes that people will be so affected by the long line of tragedies recounted here that they'll rush to pin the blame on the nearest target offered to them to try to solve the problem. Somewhere in here there are reasonable arguments ready to be made and potential ways to get help for people at risk. Instead the author just points the finger at the popular media with only a token concession that this book itself (as well as his other books -- I mean, if anyone should be conscious of the potential for mentally unstable people to do horrible things by no fault of anyone else it would be someone who writes about topics well known for attracting kooks) would then logically also be part of the problem if he was being fair in his moral outrage. But no, the problem is everyone else, even if it isn't. It's just a knee jerk reaction to a very complicated problem with no easy answers.

I purchased this book with the hopes that it would open my eyes to something that wasn't already apparent. I don't mean to trash this book but it just really didn't grab me like I thought it would. Not to say that the author didn't make a lot of good points but throughout the book he talks of the media's constant coverage of certain stories creates a copycat effect. Do we really need to read this book to figure out that most people are followers and are extremely weak minded? In some chapters he talks about the Acient Greeks, Jews, Romans etc. He talks about how the Copycat took place back in those days but they didn't have television or any other information source like we do now internet, world news etc so his theory on how the media is the casue for mass suicides is a little far fetched. For example the chapter titled "The Cobain Copycats" only told the reader that after Kurt Cobain killed himself there was no reported Copycat suicides in his name, so was the media responsible for that too? As I said before there is some pretty decent info in this book but I wouldn't reccomend buying it new. Either check it our that the library or do like I did and get it at half Priced books.

The reviewer E. Sena, who writes "I strongly disagree with associating Suicide Victims with being Cowards," is correct. But E. Sena does not appear to be talking about The Copycat Effect, but their own personal feelings. The Copycat Effect talks of "vulnerable" people, yes, but never, not once, labels anyone a "coward."

Just a clarification, as the book concerns itself with the triggering effect of contagion via the media, and only senstively discusses all people, whether the suicide victims, the shooters, the people left behind, or any others of those who are killed or survive.

The Copycat Effect: How the Media and Popular Culture Trigger the Mayhem in Tomorrow's Headlines, is an incredible read. I agree with Coleman that the world's always had its problems, it's just far more glamorous now when death is the main topic. However, on another note...not to start something, but I strongly disagree with associating Suicide Victims with being Cowards. I think a lot of people need to realize that those too sensitive to live in this world are not the problem, it's the mean, evil conspirators of the world who have nothing better to do than to make someone's life a living hell, who are to blame. It's the troublemakers who are the cowards. As a Catholic, suicide is percieved as a sin in my household, but everyday there are people taking drugs to cope with the nasties of the world. Everyday. Is it their fault they are born into homes of violence, are targeted in school as freaks, and grow up to become insecure, insular adults? I am speaking from experience. Being bullied by the world at large can crush a person who was never brought up with the right tools to cope. And there are many people like that. Instead of calling them cowards, people should realize that rather than caring about themselves, they should learn to reach out and care for others so that those lost people have someone to go to in a world when more and more everyday, noone wants to listen to another's problems. Granted there are the damaged individuals who'll jump off a roof if you say their shoes are ugly. But mostly, the victims are like you and me, but mostly alone, lonely and forgotten. I have known people like that, passing through the world unnoticed. I don't blame them. I blame the blind world at large that refused to see them.
Suicide is a huge problem, and dismissing it as something weak, cowards do is not alleviating the problem. It's just making it an even easier alternative to living in a world full of demons.

I happened across this authors blog while researching a murder that happened where I grew up. He commented in his blog with the following

"In my book, I write of Clear Lake, Texas, as a primary suicide cluster of the 1980s."

Now I have not read this book but my comments are still valid and relevant. I have to question the integrity of the entire book after reading that one comment.

Hear I am at 38 years old rolling my eyes AGAIN at this whole Suicide cluster thing in Clear Lake. I grew up across the street from Gary Shivers. He was one of the people that commited suicide right before this media frenzy. I went to Clear Lake High Scool and grew up in the shadow if this lie. None of these people knew each other as alleged and most importantly none of them ever heard anything about the suicide cluser or alleged suicide pact that involved many students. You see they were all DEAD. They did not see any of this crap in the news to copy cat in the first place. I repeat, they were all dead BEFORE the media coverage. This alone completely undermines the premise of this book.

Want more information on this. Go to classmates.com and find people that went to Highscool during that time. Contact them, ask them. Those that remember it will all tell you what a lie it all was. Nothing more