The news media’s framing of mass shootings: gun access, mental illness, violent entertainment, and terrorism

Silva, Jason R.

doi:10.21202/1993-047x.15.2021.2.332-359

Cited by 3 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…Some cases are well reported on, whereas others are not (Lankford & Madfis, 2018b). There is also variability in how the media assign blame to mass shooters (Silva, 2020b). A recent study found that holding all aspects of the crime equal, the media tend to be more sympathetic toward White mass shooters and inclined to describe them as mentally ill or a victim of society and circumstance compared with their Black counterparts, which the authors took as evidence of inherent racial bias (Duxbury et al, 2018).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Psychosis and mass shootings: A systematic examination using publicly available data.

Peterson¹,

Densley²,

Knapp³

et al. 2022

Psychology, Public Policy, and Law

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Mass shootings are often blamed on serious mental illness. This study assesses the role of psychosis in contributing to mass shootings along a continuum. The role of psychosis is compared with other motivations for mass shootings including employment issues, interpersonal conflict, relationship issues, hate, and fame-seeking. Perpetrators motivated by psychosis are also compared with other perpetrators on several well-established risk factors for violence. It is hypothesized that a mental health history is common among mass shooters, but symptoms of psychosis only directly motivate mass shootings for a minority of cases. A dataset of 172 mass shooters was created, coded on 166 life history variables using publicly available data. The entire dataset and codebook are publicly available. The findings show that symptoms of psychosis played no role in 69% of cases, but psychosis may have played a minor role in 11% of cases, a moderate role in 9% of cases, and a major role in 11% of cases. Perpetrators motivated by psychosis were similar to mass shooters with other motivations in terms of demographics and common risk factors for violence. The role of serious mental illness in mass shootings is complex. The data indicate that access to mental health care may help prevent mass shootings in a minority of cases, but this is far from the only solution to mass shootings.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Psychosis and mass shootings: A systematic examination using publicly available data.

Peterson¹,

Densley²,

Knapp³

et al. 2022

Psychology, Public Policy, and Law

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Third, when examining media coverage of school shootings, research has found that the news media most commonly frame their stories with a gun control/gun access lens (Schildkraut & Muschert, 2013; Silva, 2020). Like clockwork, each high-profile school shooting results in media outlets from across the country (and, at times, around the world) descending on the location to report the news.…”

Section: The Blame Game: the Public's Explanations Of School Shootings1mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Like clockwork, each high-profile school shooting results in media outlets from across the country (and, at times, around the world) descending on the location to report the news. This coverage becomes a salient source of information for the public in understanding how such a tragedy could happen (Silva, 2020; Silva & Capellan, 2019). With the vast majority of this content centered on the role of gun control/gun access, Americans become most exposed to this potential cause of school shootings (Schildkraut & Muschert, 2013; Silva, 2020).…”

Section: The Blame Game: the Public's Explanations Of School Shootings1mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This coverage becomes a salient source of information for the public in understanding how such a tragedy could happen (Silva, 2020; Silva & Capellan, 2019). With the vast majority of this content centered on the role of gun control/gun access, Americans become most exposed to this potential cause of school shootings (Schildkraut & Muschert, 2013; Silva, 2020).…”

Section: The Blame Game: the Public's Explanations Of School Shootings1mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Not only do politicians single out societal causes of school shootings, but violent media also are touted in the news media as contributing to America's school shooting problem (Schildkraut & Muschert, 2013; Silva, 2020). News coverage often zeroes in on the music the perpetrator listened to, movies and television shows they watched, and the video games they played to understand the motives for the shooting.…”

Section: The Blame Game: the Public's Explanations Of School Shootings1mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Back in My Day: Generational Beliefs About School Shootings

Graham

Jonson

Lee

2022

Criminal Justice Review

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Following a school shooting, the public and media search to understand what factors led to such tragedy. Faced with grief, fear, and confusion, people often seek to make sense of traumatic events. As such, this study uses a 2020 Amazon Mechanical Turk survey ( N = 739) to examine the impact of generational cohort on the blameworthiness of various perceived causes of school shootings. Findings support some generational differences. Baby Boomers were more likely to believe in societal-related causes of school shootings compared to Millennials and Generation Z. Conversely, Millennials and Generation Z were more likely than Baby Boomers to attribute the cause of school shootings to bullying, mental health, and school security. These findings suggest that future school shooting policies will seek to address bullying, mental health, and school security, while policies surrounding societal factors may be phased out.

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Rage, Prayers, and Partisanship: US Congressional Membership's Engagement of Twitter as a Framing Tool Following the Parkland Shooting

Copenhaver,

Bowman,

Ferguson

2023

JMVR

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Twitter is a popular social medium for members of U.S. Congress, and the platform has become focal for framing policy discussions for constituents and the media. The current study examines the corpus of N = 5,768 Congressional tweets sent on the day of and week following the 2018 Parkland shooting, over 25 percent of which (n = 1,615) were related to the shooting. Democrats were far more likely to engage Parkland as a prominent topic in their Twitter feeds. Democrats framed Parkland discussions in terms of outrage and criticism, as well as discussions of the potential causes of and (legislative) solutions to gun violence. Republicans mostly avoided Parkland discussions and political framing.

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The news media’s framing of mass shootings: gun access, mental illness, violent entertainment, and terrorism

Cited by 3 publications

References 16 publications

Psychosis and mass shootings: A systematic examination using publicly available data.

Psychosis and mass shootings: A systematic examination using publicly available data.

Back in My Day: Generational Beliefs About School Shootings

Rage, Prayers, and Partisanship: US Congressional Membership's Engagement of Twitter as a Framing Tool Following the Parkland Shooting

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