Excursus: Media Portrayal Staging of Bullying: Connections Between Adolescent Media Use, Bullying and Suicide

Digital information gain, communication and entertainment through new media have become elementary parts of young people’s everyday lives. In 2018, series are the most popular media form of film presentation and the most popular entertainment medium amongst young people. Of the ten most popular series, eight can be found in the Netflix database, and five of them are Netflix’s own productions. It is striking that in all of these series, different forms of violence, usually depicted in a particularly explicit way, are integrated into the story and the course of the narrative. The phenomenon of the media’s portrayal of violence, aggression and suicide has been researched and controversially discussed for years, and is not only associated with more recent Netflix series. But why does medial film performance seem to offer such high entertainment value? And what influence do high-frequency depictions of violence and suicide exert on adolescent development and later bullying behaviour and consequences? In the following chapter, these questions will be analysed by looking at the underlying social and developmental psychological processes and research findings.