Abstract
13 Reasons Why is a Netflix original series adapted from Jay Asher’s 2007 young adult novel with the same title. Season 1 premiered on March 31, 2017 and featured the sensitive issue of teen suicide along with bullying, substance use, depression, and sexual assault. Unlike the typical teen dramas on popular streaming platforms, this show was created not only for entertainment, but also to stimulate conversations about taboo topics that people often shy away from. However, it also caused significant controversy, especially criticism around the main character Hannah’s suicide scene. More than three years into the initial controversy and at least two dozen scholarly publications later, this study is the first to examine the entertainment narrative content of 13 Reasons Why Season 1 to better understand how these health and social issues were portrayed in the show, what specific examples we could identify as potential behavioral modeling, and to what degree it complied with the 2017 WHO guidelines for media professionals. We used the framing theory and social cognitive theory in communication research and media studies as our guiding conceptual frameworks and a narrative analysis approach to investigate a total of 660 cut scenes in all 13 episodes. Our findings provided empirical evidence, along with contextual information and detailed examples, to demonstrate that a popular entertainment program like the Netflix series 13 Reasons Why serves as a double-edged sword. The production team’s good will and due diligence are commendable. Yet, additional steps can be taken in the future to effectively promote professional resources and reduce viewers’ risks, especially the most vulnerable groups.
Highlights
Suicide is a serious global health concern, accounting for an annual loss of nearly 800,000 lives [1]
The United States does not have the biggest share of deaths from suicide in the world [4], suicide has been climbing at an alarming rate in recent decades [5] with an increase of 33% nationwide from 1999 to 2019 [2]
Based on the framing theory and empirical studies reviewed above, we proposed these research questions: RQ1: What health and social issues were portrayed in the Netflix series 13 Reasons Why? RQ2: How were these health and social issues portrayed in Netflix series 13 Reasons Why?
Summary
Suicide is a serious global health concern, accounting for an annual loss of nearly 800,000 lives [1]. The United States does not have the biggest share of deaths from suicide in the world [4], suicide has been climbing at an alarming rate in recent decades [5] with an increase of 33% nationwide from 1999 to 2019 [2]. From 2007 to 2018, suicide rates for the 10-24-year-olds increased by a staggering 57% and across 42 out of 50 states [8]. During this period, suicide had replaced homicide as the second leading cause of death for the 20–24 age group since 2010, for the 15–19 age group since 2011, and for the 10– 14 age group since 2014 [6]
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