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This research examines how incidental exposure to death-related information in the media affects consumers’ value orientation and scope sensitivity to marketing stimuli. Five studies demonstrate that, in contrast to thoughts about one’s own mortality, exposure to death-related information in the media can shift consumers’ focus from extrinsic to intrinsic values. This leads them to pay less attention to the marketing stimuli, which are generally associated with extrinsic values, and consequently results in lower sensitivity to the magnitude of products and services. These effects are reversed when the marketing stimuli are associated with intrinsic values. Moreover, we found that exposure to death-related media information will generate effects similar to those of mortality salience when the information is perceived to be self-relevant and thus could induce death anxiety. The authors discuss implications and possible extensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Résumé: De nombreuses recherches suggèrent que la couverture médiatique des suicides de personnalités, tout comme le fait de médiatiser la problématique du suicide en général, risque d'influencer des personnes vulnérables et de contribuer, par effet de contagion, à une augmentation du nombre de suicides. A contrario une mise en avant de situations de personnes ayant surmonté une crise suicidaire pourrait-elle avoir un impact positif ? Quelles règles définir pour une couverture médiatique responsable de cette problématique dans un objectif de prévention ? Many studies suggest that media coverage of celebrity suicides, like publicizing the issue of suicide in general, risks influencing vulnerable people and contributing, through a contagion effect, to an increase in the number of suicides. Conversely, could highlighting the situations of people who have overcome a suicidal crisis have a positive impact? What rules should be defined for responsible media coverage of this issue with a view to prevention? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Numerous studies have demonstrated the positive impact of mass media coverage of cancer on screening rates. In this online experiment, we assessed the influence of different types of mass media news articles (factual vs. emotive narratives) on cervical cancer screening intentions. We also tested the process through which mass media news articles influence screening intention. Participants (N = 141) were randomly allocated to receive either a news article containing factual information about screening, a news article containing an emotive narrative about a nonfamous woman who died after not being screened, or no information about screening. Participants, then, completed measures of stigma, fear, shame, and screening intention. Stigma toward people who had not been screened (i.e., public stigma) was greater when participants received an emotive narrative rather than factual information or no information. Moreover, we found a significant indirect effect of the manipulation on screening intention via public stigma. These results indicated that the emotive news article increased public stigma, which in turn predicted screening intention. Based on this, we argue that it is important to carefully consider the type of narrative that is included in mass media articles to ensure that it does not stigmatize people who have not been screened. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unlike many other unnatural deaths, suicides are occurrences that journalists often hesitate to cover. "Our policy is not to write about suicides," many journalists say. Except that often they do. This article, based on interviews with 50 US journalists, examines the rationales that journalists invoke as they decide whether to cover a suicide. This can be a high-risk decision because of the potential for suicide contagion and copycat effects. We conclude that in making a decision to cover a suicide, journalists go through a process of routinizing what, at the outset, they had considered an exceptional situation. This routinization provides a means to rationalize covering a death that they often say they would prefer to ignore. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital witnessing, our engagement with death through local participants’ own recordings of the conflict zone, introduces a new kind of death spectacle in the West: mediatized death [Mortensen, M. (2015).Journalism and eyewitness images. London: Routledge.]. Whilst, like past spectacles, this one also invites its publics to witness death as a moral event that requires a response, mediatized death differs from past spectacles, in that it injects into the practice of witnessing an accentuated sense of doubt: how do we know this is authentic? And, what should we feel towards it? This is because, given the multiple actors filming in conflict zones, digital witnessing breaks with the professional monopoly of the journalist and becomes a complex site of struggle where competing spectacles of death, each with their own interest, vie for visibility. How the status of the death spectacle and our potential engagement with it change under the weight of this new epistemic instability is the focus of this article. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Death has become more prominent in the news in the past four decades. Articles about a murder or accident, which in the past may have featured on page five or seven of daily newspapers, now often take up all of the front page of The New Zealand Herald. New categories have also emerged, including the threat of death or near death. This is evident from the increase in human interest stories which not only report the details of the incident but also capture emotion. This article follows the increased visibility of death stories on the front page of New Zealand's largest newspaper, The New Zealand Herald, and investigates how that coverage has changed over time. International scholars have examined the visibility of death in the media closely. However, research is sparse about exactly how this large body of work correlates with New Zealand print media. Therefore, this study aims to close this gap by using content analysis to discuss the prominence of death in The New Zealand Herald over four decades from the 1970s, and the reasons for increased coverage of threats of death or near death. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: To assess the validity of demographic data reported in news media-based data sets for persons killed by police in Massachusetts (2004-2016) and to evaluate misclassification of these deaths in vital statistics mortality data. Methods: We identified 84 deaths resulting from police intervention in 4 news media-based data sources (WGBH News, Fatal Encounters, The Guardian, and The Washington Post) and, via record linkage, conducted matched-pair analyses with the Massachusetts mortality data. Results: Compared with death certificates, there was near-perfect correlation for age in all sources (Pearson r > 0.99) and perfect concordance for gender. Agreement for race/ethnicity ranged from perfect (The Counted and The Washington Post) to high (Fatal Encounters Cohen's κ = 0.92). Among the 78 decedents for whom finalized International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision (ICD-10), codes were available, 59 (75.6%) were properly classified as "deaths due to legal intervention". Conclusions: In Massachusetts, the 4 media-based sources on persons killed by police provide valid demographic data. Misclassification of deaths due to legal intervention in the mortality data does, however, remain a problem. Replication of the study in other states and nationally is warranted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Media framing of Osama bin Laden's death was examined in four international, 24-hour news networks: CNN.com, BBC World News, Al Jazeera English and Al Arabiya English. This study found no association between news network and frames used, suggesting that neither geographical location nor ethnocentricity influenced media frames. In contrast to previous media analyses that found the most dominant media frames of bin Laden to be evil terrorist, mastermind or evil genius, this study found the dominant frames of bin Laden to be "neutral figure" or "terrorist leader." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When Christa Wolf died in 2011, the German media commemorated her in numerous, largely similar obituaries that echo statements issued by liberal-conservative politicians and reference allegations generated during the literary debate (1990/1991). Ambivalent, ironic or hostile, they downgrade or defuse Wolfs political stance, render the author and her politics futile, or work to streamline her with the ideologies dominating unified Germany. A comparative analysis of obituaries and texts by Wolf exposes the rationale behind the majority of testimonials, namely to devaluate the socialist idea in order to legitimize contemporary politics in a time of global crisis for the capitalist system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses a false death report and obituary for U.S. Mormon Martin Harris in 1841. According to the article, rumors circulated in the Kirtland, Ohio, area that Harris had been murdered for preaching against Mormonism, and an obituary for Harris ran in the newspaper the "Rochester Daily Democrat" and was reprinted in the Portland, Maine, newspaper the "Christian Mirror." The article reprints the original obituary from the "Rochester Daily Democrat."

Background: The prediction of death in intensive care units is done by using scoring systems (eg; APACHE II) which assess disease severity. This study was performed in Intensive Care Units (ICUs) of Boushehr's Fatemeh Zahra hospital to evaluate the efficacy of APACH II system and also to compare the observed mortality with the predicted mortality rate and also to that of some creditable centers. Material and Methods: This cross-sectional, descriptive and analytical study was performed on one hundred patients with critical conditions on the day of their admission to the ICU wards. Data were analysed by Chi Square, student T, sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values, ROC curve and spearman correlation coefficient using SPSS version 13. Results: The mean score in internal medicine ICU (60 patients) was15.45 and in surgery's ICU (40 patients) was 11.1. There was a positive correlation between the acquired score and mortality (p<0.001 and correlation coefficient=0.4). Mortality in our ICUs was more than that of more developed centers with respect to APACHE II score. The observed mortality rate was 31% and the predicted death rate was 19.79%. The area under ROC curve was 0.76 (CI95%=0/65-0/86). There was also a positive correlation between the acquired score and duration of ICU admission (p=0.009 and correlation coefficient=0.262). Conclusion: The APACHE II score is appropriate for predicting mortality in our ICUs. Our observed mortality rate was greater than the predicted death rate, in comparison to some developed centers which show no significant difference. Therfore it appears that we must improve our intensive cares to reduce mortality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the significance of obituaries of historical figures in the shaping of public opinion about history. The author states that obituaries stand apart from straight news stories and offer an assessment of the accomplishments of the departed. The author discusses his experiences producing televised obituaries on former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, former South African president Nelson Mandela, and former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). The article also discusses the history of obituaries in the British press.