Dear colleagues,


You may recall that I sent out am email about the firestorm surrounding 13 Reasons Why. After reviewing the way in which media reporting, in both the UK and the US, are providing prime space to certain kinds of voices, while not once speaking to academics in the fields of Film, TV, Journalism, Media & Cultural Studies, we have become concerned about the extant discourse and the rhetoric of 'harm', 'danger' and 'effects' that is being evoked without much challenge. Schools are banning the series, and much of the language used is irresponsible and sensationalised (the latter being one of the accusations levelled at the series itself). This has all the hallmarks of a rising moral panic.


(Perhaps the most egregious commentary is from our dear old friends at The Daily Mail which breaks several journalistic codes which you can find here:


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/afp/article-4501906/US-teen-suicide-series-triggers-alarm-educators-experts.html)


To address our concerns, we have written an open letter which I hope you agree is measured and careful while also being condemnatory. Our aim is to begin a democratic debate as opposed to the fears and anxieties of a small portion of academics and mental health campaigners and to prevent the continuation of poor quality reporting, that is to say, a one-sided perspective.


We would like to invite academics to act as co-signatories on the open letter which I include below for your perusal. Please email back as soon as possible if you'd like to be included. This will be circulated by our media guru by end of day tomorrow.


Thanks for taking the time to read this email and we hope you will join us in this important quest.


Best Wishes


Dr. William Proctor

Dr. Richard McCulloch

Dr. Ann Luce


..........................................................................................

Open Letter to Journalists, Mental Health Campaigners and Psychologists.



To whom it may concern,



We are writing to express our deep concern regarding the way in which journalists, mental health campaigners and psychologists are whipping up a moral panic about the Netflix TV series, 13 Reasons Why. Many UK presses are giving prime space to certain kinds of voices, many of which are scapegoating the series as ‘dangerous,’ ‘harmful’, ‘romanticized’ and ‘sensationalist’. Oddly, many critics accuse Netflix of operating outside of Ofcom’s broadcasting code and the journalist code of ethics, but these are extant guidelines for reporting and broadcasting, not for fictional representations (or, at least, the current guidelines remain vague).



We have witnessed mental health campaigners and psychologists claim to have research on their side, research that ‘unequivocally’ proves that fictional representations can impact a vulnerable young person in such a way that they may be encouraged to take their own life. We can call this the ‘media harm theory’. However, in academic disciplines such as Film, Television, Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies, this approach has been deemed too reductive, simplistic and lacking robust methodologies. We believe that this is extremely worrying as we have yet to hear voices from alternative disciplines that could provide balance and due impartiality against the tide of anxieties and personal fears stemming from various communities.



If one turns to the field of psychology and cognate disciplines, the research actually proves nothing of the kind, especially in relation to fictional representations of suicide.  In fact, this is contested within the field of psychology itself, with multiple studies finding the opposite to be true: that there is little empirical evidence that demonstrates that fictional representations directly lead to copy-cat behaviour. Readers will no doubt be aware that these kinds of arguments have considerable vintage, going back at least to the 1800s.



13 Reasons Why has opened up a channel of communication about sensitive and difficult topics. We do need to talk about suicide, and mental health more generally, but the grounds on which this is currently unfolding is the most irresponsible and ‘sensationalized’ of all. We plead with journalists, mental health campaigners, practitioners, psychologists and so forth, to cease scapegoating 13 Reasons Why and begin discussing these important issues in a careful and reasonable manner. ?



Dr. William Proctor

Lecturer in Media, Culture and Communication
Director of 'The World Star Wars Project.'
Co-Director of 'The Game of Thrones Audiences Project.'
Co-Director of 'Transmedia Earth.'
The School of Journalism, English and Communication
Bournemouth University
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