The copycat effect : how the media and popular culture trigger the mayhem in tomorrow's headlines
A disturbed student shoots up his classroom--and suddenly a wave of mass murder is sweeping through our nation's schools. A young child is taken from her home--and for months afterward child abductions are frantically reported on an almost daily basis. A surfer is attacked by a shark--and the public spends an entire summer fearing an onslaught of the deadly underwater predators. Why do the terrible events we see in the media always seem to lead to more of the same? The author explores how the media's over-saturated coverage of murders, suicides, and deadly tragedies makes an impact on our society. This is the copycat effect--the phenomenon through which violent events spawn violence of the same type. From recognizing the emerging patterns of the copycat effect, to how we can deal with and counteract its consequences as individuals and as a culture, the author has uncovered a flaw of the information age--a flaw which must be corrected before the next ripples of violence spread
Print Book, English, 2004
1st Paraview Pocket books trade pbk. ed View all formats and editions
Paraview Pocket Books, New York, 2004
True crime literature
x, 306 pages ; 21 cm
9780743482233, 0743482239
55146568
Beyond The sorrows of young Werther
Death sells
Snipers fall
Planes into buildings
In search of ancient clusters
Fiery copycats
Cultic copycats
Teen clusters
Murders and murder-suicides
Going postal
School shootings
The message in the music and the musicians
Cobain copycats
Suicide squeeze
Celebrity deaths and motion picture madness
The magnetism of milieu and moment
Coming to grips
Appendix. A comparative list of events
"Portions of chapters 1, 5, 8, 12, and 15 appeared in Loren Coleman's Suicide clusters"--Title page verso