[Air-l] Information about online suicide pacts

[Leslie M. Tkach-Kawasaki]

Hi,

There has been some research done in Japanese (and a lot
of press attention has been paid to this topic in the past
few years).

A short piece by Sean Curtin of GLOCOM:
http://www.glocom.org/special_topics/social_trends/20041104_trends_s91/index.html

Assuming you read Japanese, check out the PDFs at the
National Center of Neurology and Psychiatry, Japan
at http://www.ncnp.go.jp/ikiru-hp/report/ueda16t.html

Government policy concerning measures to combat the
phenomenon (a research group was set up through the
Prime Minister's office last year):
http://www.soumu.go.jp/s-news/2006/pdf/060126_1_bt1.pdf
http://www.kantei.go.jp/jp/singi/it2/others/kettei.pdf

A search through Japan's national database of journals
(GeNii) put out by universities and academic organizations
in Japan yields a few more, also in Japanese.

Hope that this helps.

Leslie Tkach-Kawasaki, Ph.D.
Machida, Tokyo


Christopher Helland wrote
> I'm wondering if anyone knows of any studies or ongoing research concerning online suicide pacts in Japan.  The suicide rate in Japan is almost 20 times higher than their murder rate (one of the highest in the world)--and there appears to be "a frightening increase in the number of group suicides arranged over
> the Internet through chat rooms dedicated to discussing suicide."
> 
> Any help researching this topic would be greatly appreciated.
> 
> Thanks in advance,
> 
> Chris Helland
>  
> Christopher Helland, Ph.D.
> Assistant Professor, Sociology of Religion
> Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology
> Dalhousie University
> 6135 University Avenue, Rm. 1128
> Halifax, Nova Scotia
> Canada
> B3H 4P9
> Tel: (902) 494-6757 Fax:(902) 494-2897 
> http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~chelland/index.html
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>  
> ____________________________________________________________________________________
> Want to start your own business?
> Learn how on Yahoo! Small Business.
> http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/r-index
> _______________________________________________
> The air-l at listserv.aoir.org mailing list
> is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org
> Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
> 
> Join the Association of Internet Researchers: 
> http://www.aoir.org/
>