The Mail coverage and the subsequent inferential structure

Apropos the initial conception of the Bridgend deaths as ‘Internet suicides’, the competitiveness of the media environment, brought up in the course of my interviews, also needs to be taken into account. This is an environment where all newspapers are after interesting stories, but only few of them get to break the high-profile ones, while the rest feel the need to follow suit by subsequently also reporting on them in an attempt to keep up with their rivals. Both the Bridgend MP Madeleine Moon and journalist Ed Caesar admit that the ‘Internet suicide cult’ story was so newsworthy that, as soon as it appeared in one paper, it was impossible for others to overlook:

‘What will happen is, one newspaper will carry a story and the others will jump on it because you feed the machine! So, one paper came up with the idea of ‘this was a death, where a computer was removed from the house’ and there were questions as to why they would be removing a computer. The police were doing it to see if there were any links and that then took off the story of the Internet death cult.’

(Madeleine Moon, interviewed on March 10, 2010; my emphasis)

Table 5.C

Neg otiating the level of Internet responsibility: from VI to IS

January 23, 2008: National news prominence

IS frame in the form of VI sub-frame in six out of the eight sample newspapers

Independent IS frame only in the Mail and the Telegraph (no articles from these two newspapers included in this Table)

1st week of Bridgend coverage (January 24-29, 2008)

 ‘Fashionable website where teenage suicides are a cause for celebration’ (The Times, January 24, 2008: 11)

 ‘The lethal ‘glamour’ factor (The Times, January 25, 2008: 5)

 ‘Scramble to curb suicide websites’ (The Times, January 26, 2008: 1-2)

 ‘Suicide: a teen’s way to instant fame’ (The Sunday Times, January 27, 2008: 10)

 ‘Why did they die so young? Police re-examine files on 13 tragedies’ (The Guardian, January 26, 2008: 9)

 ‘Let’s not tell our children there’s a place called ‘Suicide Town’ (The Observer, January 27, 2008: 13)

 ‘Suicide ‘axis’ crosses Welsh valleys’ (The Observer, January 27, 2008: 17)

 ‘When teenagers lose touch with reality’ (The Independent, January 24, 2008: 43)

 ‘Just upstairs, and horribly at risk’ (The Independent, January 27, 2008: 42-43)

 ‘Suicide is ‘cool’ says death cult gang’s pal’ (Daily Express, January 24, 2008: 17)

 ‘Linked by Web of despair’ (Daily Express, January 26, 2008: 15)

 ‘End of my dreams’ (Sunday Express, January 27, 2008: 9)

 ‘Sick sites’ ‘glamour’ (The Sun, January 24, 2008: 19)

 ‘Happy Luke new suicide spree victim’ (The Sun, January 2008: 31)

 ‘Street of suicide’ (News of the World, January 27, 2008: 8)

 ‘Police to probe 13 suicides’ (The Sun, January 28, 2008: 4)

 ‘I’d never do that to you Mum’ (Daily Mirror, January 24, 2008: 36-37)

 ‘Logged on to despair’ (Daily Mirror, January 26, 2008: 21)

 ‘Suicides Net probe’ (Sunday Mirror, January 27, 2008: 2)

‘[Natasha Randall] had a Bebo page, which seemed to be full of hints about what was going on. Quite a lot of these kids had social networking sites, where they talked a lot about these things, leaving condolence bricks to their friends who had died. So, I think people just caught on to the fact that it was quite a dark and interesting story and the press obviously jumped on it. And as soon as one did, everyone else did.’

(Ed Caesar, interviewed on June 23, 2011; my emphasis) These statements portray newspapers as being always on the alert for and ready to ‘jump on’ an intriguing story one after the other in order to increase their sales. This suggests that, regardless of the possibility of a suicide contagion, a story about such a contagion, let alone one spreading through the Internet, can be equally ‘contagious’ in journalistic circles. Both my above-mentioned interviewees agree that there is one newspaper taking the lead in this construction of the Bridgend deaths as Internet-related, while the rest of them follow. Neither of the two mentions this newspaper by name, but the Daily Mail’s front (Figure 5.4) and inside double-page spread (Figure 4.7) of January 23, 2008, dedicated to Bridgend’s alleged ‘Internet suicide cult’, leave little doubt that this is the one they both refer to.

The original Daily Mail piece owes its appeal to the fact that it constructs the Bridgend problem as an extensive, human-centred and visually compelling story, which is based on the commonsensical assumption that the Internet is, once again, to blame and, thus, adds to the pre-existing anxiety over online child safety. In terms of the rise of the story to national news, it is fair to say the Mail ‘owns’ the Bridgend (Internet suicide) problem.

While other newspapers are still either not that interested in the Bridgend case or too uncertain and circumspect in assigning responsibility, the Mail runs a front-page story entitled ‘The Internet Suicide Cult?’ (Salkeld and Koster, 2008a). By doing so, it establishes the primary definition (Hall et al., 1978) of the Bridgend problem, which dictates the subsequent news agenda on the subject. In the days after January 23, 2008, more and more newspapers start scrutinising the potential links between the Internet and suicide, expanding their perspective beyond online tributes to also include other aspects of cyberspace likely to influence suicidal behaviour (see Table 5.C). This, of course, does not mean that all the other newspapers subscribe to the Mail’s anti-Internet approach. In fact, left-wing broadsheets are very critical of it (see Wilby, The Guardian, 2008; Williams, The Independent on Sunday, 2008a). Nonetheless, the potency of the constructed IS frame is such that they all feel the need to respond to it, even if it is just in order to rebut it (e.g.

there is no Internet suicide cult in Bridgend because the victim did not spend so much time online or because someone or something else is to blame; see Figures 5.7 and 5.8 as well as section 7). In other words, the Mail’s take on the Bridgend suicides is so influential that it establishes the Internet factor as a yardstick against which the relevance or irrelevance of all ensuing understandings of the problem is measured.

Figure 5.7: The Times, February 9, 2008: 24

As attention shifts from a Werther effect, which can occur either online or offline, to the potentially detrimental or even lethal consequences of establishing a virtual presence, including the former effect as well as a vast array of other cyber-risks, the initial IS frame is no longer subordinate to that of SC, but evolves into a frame of its own.

Though the two frames intersect when the suggestibility of suicide in online environments is at issue, promoting one over the other entails a different level of Internet responsibility and, consequently, a different understanding of the nature and appropriate responses to the Bridgend problem.