Suicide from media portrayals and reality: Analysis of Netflix’s serial 13 Reasons Why

The release of 13 Reasons Why on Netflix has led to controversy regarding its influence on teen audience, which is this series’ major target audience. Due to teenagers’ susceptivity about environment, and their relatively fragile mental stability, this subject – media and teenager’s well-being — worth noticing. Several literature reviews of previous studies illustrate the main arguments in this field that media’s portrayal about suicide affect adolescent’s perception about suicide more or less. More detailed examination — including discussion about this series’ vivid portrayal of major teenager issues in reality, how the portrayals influence particular population regarding the descriptive scenarios and language, theories behind the reasoning — about this specific series help to further explain the reasoning behind the arguments. A collection of audience’s criticism is included as figures in this study. A noticeable critique is the suspition of romanticizing suicide behavior. However, possible professional interventions like providing alternative solutions and actively guiding of consulation might help alleviating this concern Also, the impact of new media, especially social media, where completely has protocol that respects freedom creation, should be taken into consideration, considering the difficulty for parental surveillance and control of online negative contents. Teenager’s mental health status is among major issues in modern society, media’s influence could be an effective perspective to cope with this concern.