Representation of Suicide Across Media & Cultures

Abstract

Objective of this thesis is to explore the phenomenon of suicide through various forms of representation across media and popular culture. To establish context, we begin by understanding the (self) construction of identity from a sociotechnological sense and how the proliferate visual culture affects our life expectations. Thereafter an attempt is made to trace the origins of suicidal representation across various art forms while dissecting the semiotics and context associated with events in antiquity, which might have a bearing on how we understand the topic today. Correlations between mythologies, artistic expressions and culturally linked traditions are subsequently outlined and a contemporary albeit fragmented version of perception is assessed through hashtags on popular social media platforms. In conjunction, stock photographs and non-professional image uploads are analyzed through computer vision vis-à-vis my own perceptions to uncover trends and unstated associations in the content we are consuming. Concluding remarks are intended towards asking understated questions rather than an attempt to reconfigure the meaning of voluntary death or being a discourse on universal representation.