Continued from Suicide in Japan (part 1): The recession.
The Internet plays a role in Japanese suicides, especially among the young. There’s easy access both to tips on committing suicide and to individuals willing to join in a suicide pact.
A few years ago, there was an epidemic of joint suicides using carbon monoxide from charcoal briquettes. This was followed in popularity by hydrogen sulfide, a chemical produced by combining readily available detergents. The poisonous gas is highly dangerous to anyone who comes to the rescue.
In April [2008], 80 people were injured and another 120 had to be evacuated after a 14-year-old girl killed herself with hydrogen sulfide in southern Japan’s Kochi prefecture. She’d left a note on the door of her family’s apartment that said, “Gas being emitted. Don’t open,” according to the Kyodo news service.
There was a story in Tokyo Vice
Is media coverage educational or inflamatory?
Just as in the US, sensational stories sell newspapers, and publicity invites a copycat effect. From Asia Times:
Experts say that young people who commit suicide are greatly influenced by adults who take their own lives and the publicity surrounding the deaths.
On the other hand, when suicide becomes common, it may be less newsworthy:
Sadly, youth suicide appears to have become such a common phenomenon that it no longer grabs press attention and reports are usually consigned to the back pages of newspapers. … “We only read about suicide in the press, it is never on TV. They say it is too gloomy, too dark, not a happy subject. I feel the whole country is in a state of denial. This is perhaps why we cannot solve this problem. We are trying to ignore it, but wishing it away gets us nowhere.”
Relegating suicide news to the back pages and keeping it off TV, however, may be an effective strategy to reduce copycat suicides.
Suicide pacts and online bullying
Here are some thoughts on the media and the Internet from Japanese sociology professor, Kayoko Ueno:
Because we are in the “nation of suicide”, the matter of suicides periodically comes back to the surface, thanks to the media, who brings the subject back into the debate when there are no other interesting topics. During the mid 80s we had vast coverage of suicides caused by ijime (bullying by older or stronger colleagues) among school children. In other opportunities we witness the suicide of youngsters who take the example of their idols following the massive media coverage of the suicide of some charismatic celebrity. Every time the press covers these incidents with detailed information, there are some who imitate the suicide. It is as if the reasons and the suicidal methods had been suggested by the media discourse.
The same can be said about recent coverage about suicidal pacts linked to the Internet. Surfing through the database of Asahi Shinbun – an important Japanese newspaper – using key words such as “internet” and “suicide”, one can find out that one specific incident concerning a suicidal pact occurred first in October 2000, but it was covered with the typical Shinjyuu [double suicide] headline. Although the victims hardly knew each other, their stories didn’t deserve the continuation of the report on the following days. In February 2003, another suicidal pact was covered, and it became the frame for Internet suicidal pacts in Japan, due to the large media coverage. The article spoke of a young man and two women who met through the Internet, and killed themselves with gas, using “briquettes”. Asahi Sinbun and other printed press continued to make reports with new stories day after day. Other suicidal pacts with briquettes occurred in March, and have been followed even until now by occasional incidents of the same type.
There have always been people who wish they were dead, or who have thoughts about voluntary death. But nobody used to be directly encouraged to die. In conventional media, if somebody wrote or said: “I want to die”, the most probable answer was: “Hold on, don’t die!” On the contrary, in the Internet, everybody feels free to write whatever they please under a false name. The moment somebody mentions the intention of committing suicide, original words appear immediately and make their way to the suicide candidate. Horrible words and expressions such as “you are worthless”, “you are dead”, “you don’t deserve to live”, “the world is better off without you” start to appear. These short phrases simply come out from nowhere, and even start to appear in genuine consultation pages. In the Internet’s post modern world words loose their link with the person responsible for them. Therefore, Internet suicide pages have become a fertile ground for all kinds of negative forms of communication. One of the most popular pages for the prevention of suicides had to lower the rule that users only could participate for a maximum 30 minutes, in order to prevent negative emotions from expanding.
Before the Internet era there was almost no chance that people who were thinking about suicide could meet other people with the same ideas. Now it is easy to find mates. In a minute, the Japanese can find words like “I want to kill myself, too”, in these suicide pages. It is a new phenotype of the culture of group suicide, with a new emphasis in the end of sufferance, of fear, or isolation. It is as if, all of a sudden, suicide was acceptable because it was practiced with other people and painlessly. It is also important to point out that in the discourse of the media, those who recruited their fellows rarely had any social sanction. Probably because once such an act is considered a suicide, it is by definition, a voluntary act among the participants. And even if it isn’t, once the participants are dead, who is going to take the blame?
Suicide in Japan is a complex social phenomenon. There is no general agreement among experts and commentators on why Japan is the only prosperous country with such a high rate of suicide. For an exploration of the social dimensions of the subject, including hikikomori (social withdrawal), ijime (bullying), futoko (refusing to attend school), depression, suicide, and alcoholism, see Michael Zielenziger’s book Shutting Out the Sun 
Suicide hotline numbers for Japan:
Inochi no Denwa (Lifeline Telephone Service):
Japan: 0120-738-556 Tokyo: 3264 4343
US National Suicide Hotlines:
1-800-SUICIDE (1-800-784-2433) or 1-800-273-TALK (1-800-273-8255)
TTY: 1-800-799-4TTY (1-800-799-4889)
More US phone numbers at Suicide and Crisis Hotlines
Related posts:
Suicide in Japan (part 1): The recession
Links of interest: Suicide
Shutting out the sun: The essential foreignness of another culture
An upside to the downturn?
Sesame Street’s When Families Grieve
Links of interest: Funerals, cremations, wakes
Actions surrounding the moment of death are highly symbolic
A doctor assesses Michael Jackson’s cause of death
Health care: Reminding people of death triggers irrational emotions
Resources:
Photo source (Tojinbo): Hakusan trip to Shirakawago Fukui Gokayama
Paul Wiseman, Suicide epidemic grips Japan, USA Today, July 7, 2008
Kevin Poulsen, Dangerous Japanese ‘Detergent Suicide’ Technique Creeps Into U.S., Wired, March 13, 2009
Jake Adelstein, Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan
Kayoko Ueno, Suicide as Japan’s major export? A note on Japanese Suicide Culture
Michael Zielenziger, Shutting Out the Sun: How Japan Created Its Own Lost Generation
Again thank you for focusing on the unnecessarily high rate of suicide in Japan. Some western mediad sources tend to focus on newsworthiness as you indicate. Actually Japan is the only prosperous country with such a high rate of suicide. For example our colleagues in South Korea are also working hard to reduce the very high suicide rate there which recently has exceeded even Japan’s. Good luck with your writing Jan and all the best from Tokyo.