The Interaction Between Traditional Media and New Media in Suicide News Production and Dissemination in Chinese Societies

Abstract

Background: The new online media platforms are widely penetrating into our daily life, including journalism practices. Objectives: To understand media professionals’ experiences with producing and disseminating suicide news in the new media era in Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. Methods: Face-to-face interviews with 33 journalists from Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan were conducted to understand their experiences with using the new online media in their journalism work. Grounded theory method is used for data analysis. Results: Online microblogs, forums, search engines, and instant messaging tools are commonly used by journalists in their work. The impact of new online media on traditional media’s work can be categorized into parts: 1) provide more suicide news tips; 2) increase news values of some suicide cases; 3) change the representation of suicide news; and 4) increase channels for news dissemination. In turn, traditional media is also contributing more suicide content to online media and Mainland Chinese journalists are often active in reposting information about suicide incidence on microblog sites. The interaction between traditional media and new media are relatively more active in Mainland China than in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Conclusion: Journalists in traditional media are also actively using online social media for producing and disseminating suicide news and are still playing an important role in spreading suicide information in the new media era. More studies are needed to systematically investigate their behavior patterns and the interactive disseminating routes of suicide information on both online and offline media platforms.