media behavior and television violence does significantly impact on adolescent suicide. Building on earlier research to establish a baseline for national violence levels, Bollen and Phillips (1982) show that suicides increase in relation to media exposure. Coefficiently, the data further indicates that there is an increased amount of violence several days after media stimulation, mostly in imitative types of suicide and suicide attempts. Although the data is not conclusive, the findings do point to the media and resultant imitative behavior as a trigger mechanism at peak times with individuals somewhat prone to suggestion. Adolescents and children fall into this category since they are often considerably more impressionable than many adults. In fact, adolescents often view the media as more of an extension of their own reality, and are similarly unaware of the extreme consequences that imitative behavior may have.
Commenting primarily on the research design of Bollen and Phillips and others, Baron and Reiss (1985) argue that the conclusions reached indicating that the portrayals of violence in the media cause imitative suicidal attempts may be premature.
They present evidence that shows the violent responses of the data set after viewing violent media portrayals may be more statistical artifacts than cogent causal effects. Further, the timing
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