Florian Arendt
Biographic Data
| ID | 1724971 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Florian Arendt |
| GIVEN NAMES | Florian |
| FAMILY NAME | Arendt |
| SIGNATURE | ARENDT F |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Vienna |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-1107-8682 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 45 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 101 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 45 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2013 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
Animated Media Content and the Papageno Effect
Suicide-related media portrayals can exert both harmful and protective effects on suicide-related outcomes, with the Papageno effect describing suicide-preventive influences of coping-oriented portrayals. Adult animated series have largely been absent from research, despite animation's popularity and its distinctive capacity to externalize psychological states, rendering experiences of mental health crises and recovery particularly accessible to …
Popular music and the Papageno effect
Media portrayals of overcoming suicidal crises can beneficially contribute to suicide prevention, a phenomenon termed the Papageno effect. The present study ( N = 322) is the first to utilize an experimental design to investigate the possible suicide-preventive impact of popular music. The participants listened either to three songs with explicit suicide-preventive messages (intervention group) or three matched songs from the same artists without…
Social media influencers and the Papageno effect
The media can elicit detrimental and beneficial effects on suicide-related outcomes. Although the bulk of the available evidence focuses on detrimental imitative effects, more recent studies have also investigated the media's preventive potential, especially when focusing on stories of hope, healing, and recovery. Previous studies on this suicide-protective impact, termed the Papageno effect, have often focused on legacy media, such as newspapers…
The Role of the Narrative in Educative Suicide Awareness Materials
There has been a debate about the suitability of different narratives in educative suicide prevention materials. Whereas some suicide prevention experts recommend raising awareness of suicide by highlighting its prevalence, others argue that this approach may normalize suicide and advocate focusing on help resources instead. Unfortunately, empirical evidence regarding this question is lacking. This randomized controlled trial aimed to test the im…
A Longitudinal Dynamic Perspective on Quality in Journalism
Quality of journalism is not a stable phenomenon, yet there is limited longitudinal evidence. We provide a content analysis of news reporting over a whole century within a specific thematic context: suicide reporting. Quality is a key dimension in this context as low-quality reporting is associated with imitative suicides (Werther effect). We took a historical perspective: suicide rates increased in many countries during the 19th century, with su…
Little Strokes Fell Big Oaks
This study investigates how far repeated releases of recommendations for responsible reporting on suicide (RRS) are associated with changes in the quality of suicide reporting. A content analysis was conducted on suicide news articles ( N = 606) by the Korean newspapers Hankyoreh Sinmun and Chosun Ilbo in four six-month periods from 2004 to 2019, which covered the periods before and after the releases of three versions of suicide reporting guidel…
Visuals as Identity Markers in Political Communication on Social Media
Politicians often rely on in-group markers of identity, aiming to signal their ideology to specific segments of the electorate. The impact of this practice on the electorate is insufficiently understood. In particular, we know markedly little about the effects of visual cues, a domain of utmost importance on social media. With previous research indicating that some politicians use more visual cues as identity markers than others, we set out to as…
The Media and Democratization
The media are assumed to play a key role in democratization. Much of the available evidence on the media's role in democratic transitions is based on a comparative and global perspective, focusing on rather recent key political events. Although democratization is conceptualized as a process that occurs over a long time, there is limited longitudinal evidence. Focusing on Austria, we used a long-term macro-level perspective ranging from 1816 to 19…
Why we stopped listening to the other side
Recent theorizing on deliberative democracy has put political listening at the core of meaningful democratic deliberation. In the present experiment (N = 827), we investigated whether news media can improve diverse political listening in the United States via a reduction in party cue salience. Although Republican (Democratic) participants showed a strong preference for listening to speeches given by Republican (Democratic) politicians when party …
Media stereotypes, prejudice, and preference-based reinforcement
The media portray various social groups stereotypically, and studying the effects of these portrayals on prejudice is paramount. Yet, audience selectivity—inherent within today’s high-choice media environments—has largely been disregarded. Relatedly, the predominance of forced-exposure designs is a source of concern. This article proposes the integration of audience selectivity into media stereotype effects research. Study 1 (N = 1,166) indicated…
Celebrity Suicide and Forced Responsible Reporting in the Nineteenth Century
Crown Prince Rudolf, heir to the Imperial throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, died by suicide in 1889. His death is a prime example of a historical celebrity suicide. Although news coverage about celebrity suicide has been shown to be linked to increases in suicides - a phenomenon known as the Werther effect -, censorship and/or journalists' anticipatory obedience back then may have led to a form of "forced responsible reporting" that may have…
News Framing and Preference-Based Reinforcement
COVID-19 is a news issue that can be covered from many different angles. When reporting, journalists have to select, accentuate, or exclude particular aspects, which, in turn, may evoke a specific, and possibly constricted, perspective in viewers, a phenomenon termed the news-framing effect. Guided by the reinforcing spiral framework, we conducted a multi-study project that investigated the news-framing effect’s underlying mechanism by studying t…
Algorithms without frontiers? How language-based algorithmic information disparities for suicide crisis information sustain digital divides over time in 17 countries
This study focuses on the changes in the global digital divide produced by language-based, algorithmic information disparities in relation to crisis-prevention resources for suicide available through the Google search engine. We used agent-based testing to emulate Google searches performed in 17 countries and in 16 different languages as a direct replication and extension of previous work. We compare data collected in 2017 with data collected in …
Suicide among soldiers and social contagion effects
Although we are very careful when interpreting causal effects with our historical data, we discuss the latter finding by questioning whether a change in military culture, that is, the establishment of better conditions for soldiers in the aftermath of Rudolf's suicide, contributed to decreasing suicide numbers. Although tentative, these findings are also highly relevant for the study of military suicide today
Coronavirus Disease (Covid-19) Pandemic and Stock Price Crashes
The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic is a serious threat to public health and the economy. Importantly, there was a stock price crash on Monday, March 9, 2020, followed by a similar crash one week later. Leading global indices substantially dropped. Based on previous research indicating that the news media may elicit effects on stock prices, we hypothesized that the amount of news coverage about COVID-19 within a given country would predic…
Covid-19, the media, and communication scholarship
Suicide Reporting in the Nineteenth Century
During the nineteenth century, suicide rates rose substantially in many countries, including the geographic region of the present state of Austria. Sensational news reporting about suicides may have contributed to this rise by eliciting so-called copycat suicides, a phenomenon termed the ‘Werther effect.’ We conducted a large-scale content analysis of nineteenth-century suicide reporting (N = 14,638) to provide a descriptive account of the qualit…
Family involvement in medical decision making in Europe and the United States
The Opioid-Overdose Crisis and Fentanyl
Opioid abuse is a severe public health threat. Recent evidence points to a disturbing increase in the illicit use of fentanyl, a potent synthetic opioid, with abuse often involving illicitly produced opioids mixed with heroin. Public health experts have emphasized that there is an urgent need for new, effective harm-reduction strategies and technologies. We asked whether Internet search engines could contribute toward this goal. Using state-level…
Investigating the negative-cognitive-triad-hypothesis of news choice in Germany and South Korea
Research has constantly revealed that depressive symptoms usually include negative cognitions about the world, the future, and the self, termed the negative cognitive triad. More recently, research on the stress generation hypothesis found that depressed individuals self-select themselves into situations that resonate with their depressive symptoms. In the present study, we combined these two discoveries, applied them to everyday news selection, …
Association between suicide reporting in the media and suicide
Visual Cues to the Hidden Agenda
Politicians’ reticence to communicate their views clearly increases the information asymmetry between them and the electorate. This study tested the potential of subtle ideological cues to redress the balance. By spotlighting visual rather than the already much-examined verbal cues, we sought to contribute to building theory on cue effects. Specifically, we aimed to determine whether the effects from the literature on verbal cues could also be sh…
Dealing with negative reviews on physician-rating websites
Patients are increasingly turning to physician-rating websites and write reviews. • Negative reviews can elicit reputational damage for physicians. • A web-based experiment was used to test the effectiveness of response strategies. • Physicians can prevent reputational damage by using effective response strategies. • We provide evidence-based action recommendations for physicians
Investigating Google's suicide-prevention efforts in celebrity suicides using agent-based testing
News-stimulated public-attention dynamics and vaccination coverage during a measles outbreak
Consequences of Politicians’ Perceptions of the News Media
There is limited knowledge about why political actors are dissatisfied with journalism. This article attempts to answer this question by pointing to individual-level perceptual processes of politicians. We argue that part of politicians' unease with the media can be explained by the hostile media phenomenon (HMP). Originally developed in audience research, the HMP refers to a process by which highly involved individuals tend to perceive media cov…
Investigating harmful and helpful effects of watching season 2 of 13 Reasons Why
Covid-19 pandemic, government responses, and public mental health
News and Islamist Radicalization Processes
This study investigated how Muslims perceive negative news coverage of Islam and how these perceptions possibly contribute to radicalization processes. Utilizing qualitative interviews with former Islamists, Study 1 indicated that radicalized Muslims perceive a governmental infiltration of the media resulting in negative content. Analyses indicate that perceptual phenomena (hostile media, third person), negation, and anger play an important role …
Die Auswirkung des Schlüsselereignisses „Silvesternacht in Köln“ auf die Kriminalitätsberichterstattung
Effects of exposure to self-harm on social media
Suicide is a leading cause of death among youth, and media depictions of suicidal behavior can be a contributing risk factor. Of interest, Instagram recently received more scholarly attention due to its large number of publicly available, explicit, and graphic depictions of self-harm. Importantly, researchers have hypothesized that exposure to this content could be a risk for self-harm and suicide in vulnerable audiences. We tested this hypothesi…
Questionable Research Practices in Experimental Communication Research
Questionable research practices (QRPs) pose a major threat to any scientific discipline. This article analyzes QRPs with a content analysis of more than three decades of published experimental research in four flagship communication journals: Journal of Communication, Communication Research, Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, and Media Psychology. Findings reveal indications of small and insufficiently justified sample sizes, a lack of re…
Visual Cues to the Hidden Agenda
Politicians’ reticence to communicate their views clearly increases the information asymmetry between them and the electorate. This study tested the potential of subtle ideological cues to redress the balance. By spotlighting visual rather than the already much-examined verbal cues, we sought to contribute to building theory on cue effects. Specifically, we aimed to determine whether the effects from the literature on verbal cues could also be sh…
The Media and Democratization
The media are assumed to play a key role in democratization. Much of the available evidence on the media's role in democratic transitions is based on a comparative and global perspective, focusing on rather recent key political events. Although democratization is conceptualized as a process that occurs over a long time, there is limited longitudinal evidence. Focusing on Austria, we used a long-term macro-level perspective ranging from 1816 to 19…
Investigating Google's suicide-prevention efforts in celebrity suicides using agent-based testing
Equal access to online information? Google’s suicide-prevention disparities may amplify a global digital divide
Worldwide, people profit from equally accessible online health information via search engines. Therefore, equal access to health information is a global imperative. We studied one specific scenario, in which Google functions as a gatekeeper when people seek suicide-related information using both helpful and harmful suicide-related search terms. To help prevent suicides, Google implemented a “suicide-prevention result” (SPR) at the very top of suc…
Detecting Intentional Self-Harm on Instagram
Self-injurious behavior is often practiced in secrecy or involves body parts that are easy to hide, making early detection difficult and hampering intervention and treatment. However, cutting, one of the most common intentional forms of nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI), is relatively often shared publicly via new digital media technologies. We explored NSSI on Instagram through a pioneering combination of two computational methods: First, we develo…
The role of language in suicide reporting
Content Analysis of Mediated Associations
Due to the fact that mediated associations are a central aspect of many mass communication theories, their measurement is of central interest for communication research. Mediated associations are defined as the repeated pairing of an object (e.g., social group, political party) with specific attributes (e.g., crime, economy). In this article, we introduce a recently developed, automated text-analytic technique. We present an application of this m…
Social media influencers and the Papageno effect
The media can elicit detrimental and beneficial effects on suicide-related outcomes. Although the bulk of the available evidence focuses on detrimental imitative effects, more recent studies have also investigated the media's preventive potential, especially when focusing on stories of hope, healing, and recovery. Previous studies on this suicide-protective impact, termed the Papageno effect, have often focused on legacy media, such as newspapers…
Visuals as Identity Markers in Political Communication on Social Media
Politicians often rely on in-group markers of identity, aiming to signal their ideology to specific segments of the electorate. The impact of this practice on the electorate is insufficiently understood. In particular, we know markedly little about the effects of visual cues, a domain of utmost importance on social media. With previous research indicating that some politicians use more visual cues as identity markers than others, we set out to as…
Family involvement in medical decision making in Europe and the United States
Increasing Adherence to Media Guidelines on Responsible Reporting on Suicide
Responsible reporting on suicide (RRS) is a cornerstone of suicide prevention. Scholars have developed media guidelines facilitating RRS, but there are barriers to accepting and implementing these suggestions, alongside obstacles for journalists’ comprehensive adherence to them. For example, journalists could perceive media guidelines as a threat to their autonomy or to the freedom of the press. However, there is scant evidence on how journalists…
Assessing responsible reporting on suicide in the nineteenth century
The press may have contributed to suicide as a mass phenomenon during the nineteenth century. There is limited knowledge on how the press reported on suicide. We utilized a content analysis of suicide news during the time period of suicide rate's strong increase in Austria (1855, 1865, 1875, 1885), assessing variables related to the responsible reporting on suicide (RRS). Analyses indicate that the press showed low levels of RRS and the quantity …
Dose-Dependent Media Priming Effects of Stereotypic Newspaper Articles on Implicit and Explicit Stereotypes
Current research draws a distinction between stereotype activation and application. Building on this differentiation, we present an implicit social cognition model of media priming: Implicit stereotypes (i.e., automatically activated stereotypes) are the outcome of associative processes, whereas explicit stereotypes (i.e., overtly expressed judgments) represent the outcome of propositional processes. We tested some of the model's basic prediction…
Television Commercials and Fading Behavioral Brand Choice Effects in Austrian Children
Previous research demonstrates that commercials can influence food choice and thus eating behavior in children but little is known about the duration of this effect. We conducted an experiment (N = 134) where seven- to eleven-year-old children watched a cartoon with an embedded advertising block. Half of the children saw a commercial for a specific brand of chocolate candies. After watching, we measured actual brand choice. We found that children…
Questionable Research Practices in Experimental Communication Research
Questionable research practices (QRPs) pose a major threat to any scientific discipline. This article analyzes QRPs with a content analysis of more than three decades of published experimental research in four flagship communication journals: Journal of Communication, Communication Research, Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, and Media Psychology. Findings reveal indications of small and insufficiently justified sample sizes, a lack of re…
Spiral of Silence
This entry introduces the theory of public opinion, usually referred to as the Spiral of Silence, originally proposed by Noelle‐Neumann in 1974. After outlining the key propositions of the theory along with the main research findings, this paper discusses theoretical and methodological challenges of Spiral of Silence scholarship and enumerates the contributions of this theory to the field of mass communication.
Nature Documentaries, Connectedness to Nature, and Pro-environmental Behavior
We investigate the effects of nature documentaries on pro-environmental cognition and behavior. Of central interest is the concept of connectedness to nature, which describes an individual's sense of being connected to nature. Based on previous research showing that a direct nature experience in zoos can increase connectedness to nature, we questioned whether watching a nature documentary could increase connectedness to nature and pro-environment…
Implicit and Explicit Attitudes as Predictors of Gatekeeping, Selective Exposure, and News Sharing
Media-related selection (MRS) is an umbrella concept for selection processes such as gatekeeping by journalists, selective exposure by audience members, and news sharing by social network site (SNS) users. Importantly, individual attitudes can influence MRS. Previous research on attitude-based MRS has relied almost exclusively on overtly expressed evaluations (i.e., explicit attitudes) as predictors of selection outcomes. We tested whether automa…
Content Analysis of Mediated Associations
Due to the fact that mediated associations are a central aspect of many mass communication theories, their measurement is of central interest for communication research. Mediated associations are defined as the repeated pairing of an object (e.g., social group, political party) with specific attributes (e.g., crime, economy). In this article, we introduce a recently developed, automated text-analytic technique. We present an application of this m…
Suicide rates and information seeking via search engines
The volume of Google searches for suicide-related terms is positively associated with suicide rates, but previous studies used data from specific, restricted geographical contexts, thus, limiting the generalizability of this finding. We investigated the correlation between suicide-related search volume and suicide rates of 50 nations from five continents. We found a positive correlation between suicide rates and search volume, even after controll…
Die Auswirkung des Schlüsselereignisses „Silvesternacht in Köln“ auf die Kriminalitätsberichterstattung
Consequences of Politicians’ Perceptions of the News Media
There is limited knowledge about why political actors are dissatisfied with journalism. This article attempts to answer this question by pointing to individual-level perceptual processes of politicians. We argue that part of politicians' unease with the media can be explained by the hostile media phenomenon (HMP). Originally developed in audience research, the HMP refers to a process by which highly involved individuals tend to perceive media cov…
News and Islamist Radicalization Processes
This study investigated how Muslims perceive negative news coverage of Islam and how these perceptions possibly contribute to radicalization processes. Utilizing qualitative interviews with former Islamists, Study 1 indicated that radicalized Muslims perceive a governmental infiltration of the media resulting in negative content. Analyses indicate that perceptual phenomena (hostile media, third person), negation, and anger play an important role …
Equal access to online information? Google’s suicide-prevention disparities may amplify a global digital divide
Worldwide, people profit from equally accessible online health information via search engines. Therefore, equal access to health information is a global imperative. We studied one specific scenario, in which Google functions as a gatekeeper when people seek suicide-related information using both helpful and harmful suicide-related search terms. To help prevent suicides, Google implemented a “suicide-prevention result” (SPR) at the very top of suc…
The role of language in suicide reporting
Googling for Trump
Search engines are increasingly used by citizens to seek out political information. Both the high frequency of use and the high credibility attributed to them by their users emphasize the need for research on search engines’ role in the democratic process. The present paper reports on a case study on online information seeking (OIS) via search engines during the 2016 US presidential election. Presidential candidate Donald Trump was largely unknow…
Increasing Adherence to Media Guidelines on Responsible Reporting on Suicide
Responsible reporting on suicide (RRS) is a cornerstone of suicide prevention. Scholars have developed media guidelines facilitating RRS, but there are barriers to accepting and implementing these suggestions, alongside obstacles for journalists’ comprehensive adherence to them. For example, journalists could perceive media guidelines as a threat to their autonomy or to the freedom of the press. However, there is scant evidence on how journalists…
Effects of exposure to self-harm on social media
Suicide is a leading cause of death among youth, and media depictions of suicidal behavior can be a contributing risk factor. Of interest, Instagram recently received more scholarly attention due to its large number of publicly available, explicit, and graphic depictions of self-harm. Importantly, researchers have hypothesized that exposure to this content could be a risk for self-harm and suicide in vulnerable audiences. We tested this hypothesi…
Detecting Intentional Self-Harm on Instagram
Self-injurious behavior is often practiced in secrecy or involves body parts that are easy to hide, making early detection difficult and hampering intervention and treatment. However, cutting, one of the most common intentional forms of nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI), is relatively often shared publicly via new digital media technologies. We explored NSSI on Instagram through a pioneering combination of two computational methods: First, we develo…
Assessing responsible reporting on suicide in the nineteenth century
The press may have contributed to suicide as a mass phenomenon during the nineteenth century. There is limited knowledge on how the press reported on suicide. We utilized a content analysis of suicide news during the time period of suicide rate's strong increase in Austria (1855, 1865, 1875, 1885), assessing variables related to the responsible reporting on suicide (RRS). Analyses indicate that the press showed low levels of RRS and the quantity …
Investigating harmful and helpful effects of watching season 2 of 13 Reasons Why
Association between suicide reporting in the media and suicide
Visual Cues to the Hidden Agenda
Politicians’ reticence to communicate their views clearly increases the information asymmetry between them and the electorate. This study tested the potential of subtle ideological cues to redress the balance. By spotlighting visual rather than the already much-examined verbal cues, we sought to contribute to building theory on cue effects. Specifically, we aimed to determine whether the effects from the literature on verbal cues could also be sh…
Dealing with negative reviews on physician-rating websites
Patients are increasingly turning to physician-rating websites and write reviews. • Negative reviews can elicit reputational damage for physicians. • A web-based experiment was used to test the effectiveness of response strategies. • Physicians can prevent reputational damage by using effective response strategies. • We provide evidence-based action recommendations for physicians
Investigating Google's suicide-prevention efforts in celebrity suicides using agent-based testing
News-stimulated public-attention dynamics and vaccination coverage during a measles outbreak
Covid-19 pandemic, government responses, and public mental health
Psychology (31 works) · Medicine (18 works) · Political science (18 works) · Social Psychology (18 works) · Suicide and Self-Harm Studies (16 works) · Sociology (14 works) · Computer Science (13 works) · Law (13 works) · Suicide prevention (13 works) · Poison control (12 works)