Media Coverage Of Mass Violence Analysis

The article Shootings by Adam Gopnik depicts the correlation between mass murders and media to be a social gathering in which citizens from all around the world bandwagon onto debates to form “crusades”. Adam emphasises that media sources only shine light upon topics of gun violence and mass shootings in a overly exaggerated tone, rather than finding an appropriate solution. Adam attepmted to propose that media only brodcrasts pinpointed topics that grabs public attention to make headlines by focusing the characteristics of the Virgina Tech’s shooter’s mental illness. According to Adam (2007) “... much of the conversation was devoted to musing on the treatment of mental

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?

Moreover, Grenny's article alludes to the fact that in the case of crimes such as school shootings, the media routinely discloses an intimacy of details such as the shooter's characteristics, traits, and method of pursuing his deadly duty. Essentially, the media is responsible for creating celebrities out of villains. Regardless of how a

The press only adds to the negativity, in one case, they only talked about the murdered, Crawford, and when they talked about the victims, they spoke about them as trash and worthless. This has helped changed my thinking about the media and press and how things are displayed. Everyone is important. The further I investigated this topic, the sooner this sadness turned into confusion, on why nothing is being done.

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).

Walkowitz's investigation of this chapter primarily highlights the influential role of the press in the form of subjectivities and behaviors. She argues about the media coverage of these murders presented a discourse

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

Since people are mostly only able to participate in catastrophes such as this mass shooting at a distance, news media is the primary source of information, which therefore creates the audiences’ reality of the events that occur.(Wheeler 80) With this, the mass media has the control of what people are exposed to, and the choice to amplify awareness to what they choose as important. In an interview conducted with Sarah, an undergraduate student at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, she recalled her exposure to the news of the shooting: “The only reports I had access to, was what I saw in the news”. When asked how she thinks the media had an effect on her perception of the shooting, she stated: ”Well I believe that since the only information I was able to get was from news sources, what I saw in the news is what I believed. So I really do think the media had a strong effect since I was exposed to mainly what they chose to present to me.” With this, media messages, such as the reporting on the Las Vegas shooting, exert a strong influence on audiences and the cultivation of people’s perception. The frequent exposure to these stories of mass shootings and the use of descriptors based on race are fed to the audience and become a common knowledge. Ultimately, the promotion of racial stereotypes through the disproportionate representation of perpetrators of mass shootings influences public opinion and perception.(Lankford) With the strong effect that media has on the people, it is

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

Media today plays a big part in the mass shootings believe it or not. “Media contagion” is largely responsible for the increase in these often deadly outbursts”(Media Contagion). By showing the number of casualties on media this can give ideas to the next shooter. The next possible shooter could get an idea of trying to outdo the previous shooter by attempting to kill more people and to do more damage. There was a scenario where a TV reporter posted a video of himself gunning down two ex colleagues and posted the video all over Twitter and Facebook, the next day after this all occurred the shots of him gunning down innocent people from the shooters perspective were plastered all over the newspaper. “The Daily News said that it published the images “to convey the true scale” of the attack “at a time when it is so easy for the public to become inured to such senseless violence”(Follman, Mark). This shows how it can influence other mentally ill people to shoot to kill and shoot to kill a mass number of people. This all has been researched and could be somewhat prevented by not so much giving out the details of an incident like this and giving titles out like “greatest mass shooting” to influence other people.

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.

Media coverage glorify the killer’s crimes which provides inspiration for others to pursue similar crimes or worst. One may notice that there are several mass shootings that can happen in a span of a few months. As a result, the public finds the same news coverage but with different people. With this continuous series of events. one may find that a wave of “copycat suicides” will occured in their own community. This wave of suicides occurs when someone commits suicides when a suicide is publicized (Herz). Vice president of research for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, Jill Harkavy-Friedman, claims that “The more characteristics you make available for modeling, the more likely that modeling will occur” (Herz). Harkavy-Friedman

Mass media has been known for sensationalised reporting where certain news stories are singled out and amplified to make them appear more dramatic than they actually are. When this goes out of hand, it results in a phenomenon called moral panic.

Thousands of our nation's men and women were fighting for their country, yet the media limited the amount of information that they chose to pass on to the public. Each day the media is faced with the choice of making decisions of what news to pass on, when that news could make a significant difference in someone's life, or in the fate of our nation.