Mass Media And Mass Shootings

Media coverage of news events can be disseminated to the general public in any number of different ways and media biases often “reflects certain organizational and/or professional preferences or values” (Bennett 2011, 173). In fact, Lundman (2003) points out “that journalists assess the newsworthiness of homicides occurrences using the relative frequency of particular types of murders and how well specific murder occurrences mesh with stereotypical race and gender typifications (357).” In addition, Johnson (2012) felt that the real job of media was to “create a message that…grabs public attention (62).” In other words, can the media grab the public’s attention and hold it?

Over the past couple of decades, school shooting have seemed to occur often-- continuously shocking the nation and reminding everyone that no community is exempt from such horror. One main contributor of this hysteria is found within the media. At the catalyst of this hysteria, lies the horrific Columbine shooting in 1999. Since then, school shootings have received ample coverage-- some argue that this has romanticized school shootings, others argue that is has provided condemning coverage of the often insane perpetrators. In the first year after the Columbine shooting, over 10,000 articles were written about the event, likely setting the stage for the nationwide desire for constant coverage of such events (Elsass et al, p. 445-446).

School shootings have become well known around the world due to the coverage by the media. . These shootings are a serious concern and have parents constantly concerned about their child’s safety when they are at school and also have students thinking twice about any unusual or suspicious behavior. The media appears to play a large part in school shootings and it is important to analyze the deviant behaviors of the shooters in these horrific instances and the fear they create in schools. Does the media play a large part in school shootings or does the media play a large part in the sensationalism of school shootings and the fear they create both in schools and with parents?

  Mass media's vital role in the public perception of school shootings is seen as a social problem, and social scientists

A major concern in the United States is why mass shootings occur and what needs to be done to stop them from happening. Mass shootings have gained a significant amount of attention in 2015. Within the year, a total of 372 mass shootings have occurred in the United States killing 475 people and wounding 1,870. Mass shootings have become a popular trend within the media and have given the impression that it is the new normal. Mass shootings are a dysfunction to society, due to the fact that they create horror and tragedy within the country. Schools, shopping malls, and even movie theatres have all endured the horrific violence. Mass shootings are nothing new, however, they seem to be occurring more often and are becoming more and more violent. The three leading factors to mass shootings are problematic masculinity, mental illness, and gun control.

Viewers across the nation are affected by the social media causing stress on the subject by bombarding the public with media stories, rumors and “a sense of mass panic”. Victims have to relive that horrible moment because the media wants to

Has the deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill led to the increase of mass shootings experienced in the US? According to Lankford, several reports suggest that up to 60% of offenders of mass shootings in the US since 1970, exhibited symptoms including depression, delusions, and acute paranoia prior to the commission of their crimes. Further statistics have shown that since 1982, there have been at least 71 public mass shooting across the country; with 34 of these mass shooting having occurred since 2006. A recent analysis of the database by researchers at Harvard University corroborated by a recent FBI study concluded that mass shootings have been on the rise. More than half of the cases involve school or workplace shootings, 12 and 20

The mental health system in The United States is flawed and needs serious reform. Many of the mentally ill are failing to seek the help that they need and deserve in a country like the U.S is baffling and must be reassessed. The system causes a rise in gun violence and more specifically, mass shootings. There are many factors that need to be taken into consideration when approaching mental disorders and their correlation with mass shootings. Things such as type of mental disorder, the widespread diagnosis in the US, masculinity in men, and gun laws themselves. This research was done through a series of articles, interviews, and books. Mental disorders need to be taken largely into consideration when trying to find a cause for a shooting, and

Admittedly, the amount of mass shootings in America is still going on onto this day, as last week, California had a recent one, carried out by a couple with assault grade weapons. Thus, this topic was brought up countless time on the news, what could be done. I believe pretending is part of the problem. These things happen over and over again and yet we do nothing and pretend it won’t happen again. Changing nothing and then believing something will change is a ludicrous ideology. This same ideology is being used by many Americans, we are given examples of other place throughout the world on how they turn their country gun problem around, similar to Australia, yet we pretend we don’t notice just like we pretend we don't notice our country's

"I'm angry someone would do this to us. There are lives ruined, families ruined, and our whole school year is ruined" (Brackely 1). Casey Brackely, once a student that attended Columbine High School, remembers the tragedy of the horrific Columbine shooting that killed and injured many students. Mass shootings in the United States have been on the rise since the 1980’s, especially in the last decade. These shooters motives and profiles are almost all terrifyingly alike. Many of these shooters try to imitate and parallel the tragic shooting of the Columbine High School in 1999. These shootings have made peaceful organizations, such as an elementary school; become a place of violence and death. Currently, in the United States, an epidemic of

Katherine Newman, provost of the University of Massachusetts Amherst and co-author of "Rampage: The Social Roots of School Shootings," said media coverage may prompt copycat crimes, but shining the national spotlight on mass and school shootings can have benefits, too. It encourages students and adults to come forward with information about suspicious people (Smart, 2015). We need to understand why these people commit these crimes in order to stop these crimes from happening. Even if the people panic from these stories being on the news it is good to know that these things could happen. People also think that children in school should know that something that this, even though it is rare, could

In reference to the media’s role, they have been highlighted for playing a part in maintaining these views by portraying victims in a certain way according to the newsworthiness of each story

A current most spoken issue among the public media is gun violence or mass shooting however the crime is not as many as it was twenty years ago. The term mass shooting does not have an official set of definition yet, but the term indicates crime which is killing as many people as possible in a short time frame. The Federal Bureau of Investigation defines it as “actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a populated area” (Sam Brock, Rachel Witte, and Joe Rojas). A mass shooting can begin due to several reasons: it could be background history, media, despair, or something else. Nico Lang, the author of America’s White Masculinity Complex and The Myth of The “Senseless” Mass Shooting says, mass shooting can also be related to mental “functions like the specter of ‘mental illness.’” A number of mass shooters have serious, often undiagnosed mental problems. Are the mass media addressing the basic issue clearly? Of course, the media address the issue more than the violence expects to be addressed, but it is not overt enough. ….. By examining a variety of news media coverage on the subject of mass shooting, this essay concludes that when choosing stories to cover, the news media must take the general audience into consideration. Ultimately, what is at stake here is the media exaggerate the crime and report it disproportionally, and the distortion of reality can have variety of effects on the viewer or the general audience.

This research paper’s purpose is to examine how the media is received, based on an audience analysis on the Orlando nightclub shooting in June 2016. His follows on from the findings of a content analysis on the same topic and used to understand how both the public and the media represent the shooter, Omar Mateen. An audience analysis is used to determine how the public and viewers responded to media content and is used to shape media content (Napoli, 2012, pp.79). A survey responded by peers was used to gather the results, which will be analysed and compared throughout this paper with the findings of the content analysis, and used to understand, not only the representation of Omar Mateen, but also the relationship between the public and the media.

As Griffin (2009, p. 364) so concisely stated, “the media aren’t very successful in telling us what to think, but they are stunningly successful in telling us what to think about”. In more recent times, the direction of this theory has changed. Scholars have begun to focus on how the media “frame” social issues through the inclusion and omission of certain attributes of particular events (Ruddock, 2013). “Framing” refers to the forming of narratives and concepts that deliver meaning as an event unfolds (McCombs and Shaw, 1972). Themes such as media violence, particularly in the event of a school shooting, are often used to repeatedly reinforce social norms that are deemed important by the media. As a result, generic stereotypes are inevitably cast and the potential copycat behavior advertised.