New York University is considered the best school in the entire nation. However, in these years he was not in fame in praise of his education, but in some more morbid tone – they kill. In 2004 there were at least sixteen deaths reported at NYU. In 2005, there were 5 newspapers jumping on this (no pun intended), calling it a “suicide string” that has “shocked” the nation. The articles on this topic range from talking about the destruction in class, the students, the school, and the effects on other colleges. It is very interesting to examine these differences and the implications they have for the way the media communicates about NYU and New York in general. Is this a real “pest” or is the media blowing it out of proportion to create what Mark Fishman would call a “crime wave”?
The waves of criminals begin to sing. There are several cases that are connected due to a similar type of crime. The same crime could happen repeatedly, or other crimes that may fall under one category defined by the theme. Crime waves are “little more than continuous and serious coverage of many events that journalists report as a single theme” (Fishman). The deaths at NYU are all listed under the same category, although the stories are different. The causes of the deaths are varied – one was drug-related, the other had problems with her boyfriend – but all are included in the category of “NYU suicides”. This combination enables you to facilitate the collection of critical problems in the school that is too stressful, or not enough to have a prevention strategy. Each aspect of the coverage in these stories shows the development of the theme of crime in death at NYU, blowing up into a full crime wave.
“Random Destruction” begins in 2003, when two students are left for murder in Bobst’s library. These things he ordered to be erected in the library. From then on, all articles used words such as “disturbing”, “tragic” and “mob”. These articles kill themselves as what, as Fisher says, “can be marked as a corner grocery store”< /a> (Fishman) . They create a theme: mortifications in a prestigious college.
The articles present the death in a similar way – the first sentence states that the death was done to him, alludes to the reactions of the people and the disciples around the victim, and gives some place to the disciples. The manner in which the vessels bring death upon themselves automatically sensationalizes them. Articles appear geared for maximum impact. There is always a mention of age, and also of previous mortifications. This creates the sense that everyone is aware of death which is not the case at NYU, and makes the stories sound like “pests”, thereby creating a crime theme. The deaths at NYU are reported as a theme, not as isolated incidents, and there are many articles that refer to this topic. This allows journalists to write about suicides as they happen, or to refer to them as a means of making comments about stress in youth, college suicides, NYU suicide prevention, and many other things that fall under the umbrella of this theme. Some crimes are told to others, they make stories put together for groups news” (Fishman. ).
An article in the Hartford Courant in 2004 takes the impact value to a higher level, thus an excellent example of the image of NYU suicides in print media: the first 4 paragraphs present NYU as a school with much to be proud of. The article gives the impression that everything is peachy, even mentioning that the Princeton Review named NYU the “No. 1 “dream college” in the United States. “ (Buck) you can almost hear the birds chirping happily. “But then,” the article continues, “the students began to jump” (Buck). This is a typical way of destruction of NYU written in the newspaper. The school is described as great in all other areas. Except perhaps that his students seem to be jumping off a few rooftops.
NYU has over 21,000 undergraduate students and over 16,000 students (college). About 1,100 suicides occur on college campuses around the US each year (National Health Association & The Jed Foundation estimates 2002). The average age group of students college has the highest suicide rates in the country, regardless of where they are. go to college or wherever they are. Judging by this information, the death toll at NYU no longer seems to be staggering. However, reading article after article about the number of suicides that have occurred at NYU every year makes it seem like there were a lot more than there actually are.
People who are aware of death were also specifically addressed in many articles. Since the place is NYU students, they are automatically placed on the social ladder. They are also young, which is always emphasized in all the articles. This is already more inferred from the tragic stories. As one of the students’ friends says, “we were freshmen and this was supposed to be a new beginning” (Burke).
The disciples are also said to be good, friendly, and fine on the surface, but perhaps inside they are stressed and distressed. Articles are quotes from friends and peers. “Mr. Bohler seemed social and friendly and, like the other students, he liked to go out and explore the city,” one girl stated. of the second library suicide Bobst (Lipton). Another posthumous comment in 2004 suggests that the student was “an excellent student who would certainly have been a filmmaker” (KRT Campus).
All the students appeared innocent and were “shocked” and “surprised” by their destruction, although it later turned out that many of them had reached out to someone, announcing that they were e stressed or I could not handle things present. Even when medical topics were involved, it was of little importance. When one of the scientists was ruled by an accident caused by drugs, the articles that followed still referred to the death, and still included in the “suicide of the Count”. Justin Baer and William J. Chambliss list this as one of the ways crime reporting can be used to tell the story that you want to tell: “It doesn’t matter if the next day the coroner says it was suicide or the prosecutor decides it was just. (Baer). Although the death was ruled accidental, he became aware of the death because of the newspapers reporting on it.
This pushes the topic from being merely a crime theme, to a crime wave. Fishman states that in order for the crime theme to grow into a wave, “there must be a continuous supply of crime incidents that can be seen as examples of the theme” (Fishman). To be sure, even destruction, which is later ruled as accidents, is still counted as part of the waves.
In addition to the many articles that talk about the death at NYU – “Second Suicide Leap …!” – there are also some chapters criticizing NYU and its handling of the mortifications. NYU is putting up barriers in the library and restricting access to dormitories and meeting with harsh words. There are numerous articles that state that this does not solve anything. “This policy in the name of suicide prevention seems more like a face-saving way for N.Y.U. to ensure that students don’t end their lives on the N.Y.U. campus than a way to reach out to destructive students and provide them with help and guidance,” stated one editorial in Washington Square News in 2005 (Arenson). Another article from that year calls NYU “Jump-Plagued” (Katz).
This article questions NYU’s prevention methods. They say NYU needs to reach out to its students and get to the core of the problem – depression and stress, as opposed to closing balconies and putting up barriers. This makes NYU look like it doesn’t care about its students, and in a way it makes these killings happen to students at all. the school‘s fault for not acting.
Not only do these schools look bad, but they also bring NYC into question. Generalizations about NYU as a university apply in turn to the city. Many non-New Yorkers see NYC as a scary and dangerous place. Death confirms this opinion. After the second death in 2003, the article quotes the mother as saying, “New York is the first place that gives me pause… So this gives me an added moment of pause” (Lipton). This brings the dangers of NYC into the picture, although suicides are not directly a result of living in NYC. criminal activity is caused by someone outside of you.
The next step is connecting NYU with other colleges across the country. An article by Sam Edelstein in the Daily Orange (a Syracuse U. publication) talks about the dangers and problems posed by the NYU deaths. Throughout the article, Edelstein claims that Syracuse University did not have a high suicide rate and that suicide numbers have actually decreased in recent years. However, NYU’s death seems to be causing panic not among students, but rather among universities and colleges. Because NYU has been presented in such a bad light for not preventing death, other colleges are beginning to worry about how they would look if something happened. Edelstein mentions that unlike NYU, “If a single threat does occur, however, Public Safety officials, along with the policy center, are ready to help” (Edelstein). More worried about the destruction, the school is more worried about confronting NYU on suicide prevention policies. Thus, the topic of suicide in colleges at NYU spread to other colleges, and a way of talking about social issues became through the use of this topic.
Although the suicides at NYU have been widespread for several years, the manner in which they have been covered in the print media has all the hallmarks of a crime, indeed a crime wave. The social media has an opportunity to criticize aspects of society through what seems to be an epidemic of deaths in one of the “dream schools” of the United States. States. In retrospect, everything seems so easy to prevent. But the causes of all of NYU’s problems differ from case to case. The way in which they are connected, they help to forget that very thing. They are examined as a whole, including all the events in one theme.
The NYU kills all received attention, and almost every article follows the same template. There are articles that respond to the “epidemic”, and there are other colleges that oppose NYU, criticizing the school. Media influence is the way people look at certain issues, and the destruction at NYU is no exception.
Notes:
Arenson, Karen W. Post Suicides, N.Y.U. Restrict access to balconies. New York
Times. March 30, 2005.
Baer, Justin, and Chambliss, J. William. Generating Fear: The Politics of Crime Opinion.
Crime, Law, and Social Change. Vol. 27, 87 – 107, 1997.
Buck, Rinker. Student death recognition of NYU as the college of dreams. Chicago
Tribune of the people 2004
Burke, Kerry and Grace, Melissa. NYU Fresh Days in the 15-Story Fall. Daily News
September 23, 2007
Edelstein, Sam. The recent destruction at NYU affected the Syracuse community. April 14, 2004.
Fisher, Marcus. Crime wave as Ideology. Social Problems, Vol. 25, n
1978
Lipton, Eric. Second Suicide Leap Leaves New York University Shaken. New York Times.
October 12, 2003.
Katz, Celeste. Skip to content NYU Shuts Dorm Balconies March 30, 2005. Daily News.
KRT Campus NYU death sneaks up on student. B. G. News. 12 September 2004
