News media heeding call to reduce reporting names of mass shooters

How News Media Report on Mass Shootings

A 2019 research study (Dahmena et al., 2019) surveyed more than 1,300 daily newspaper employees in the late 2010s and looked at the factors that were most influential in predicting journalists’ attitudes toward the news media coverage of mass shootings. The results showed that journalists thought that the media were doing a good job of covering mass shootings. They also agreed that reporting on such events had become “sensational,” meaning the focus was on the shocking details of the crime rather than the causes and motives. They agreed that mass shooting coverage in the United States had become routine while many thought that the coverage should be more comprehensive. There was no agreement about the connection between news media coverage of mass shootings and the contagion effect. The journalists strongly supported the naming of perpetrators in mass shootings and showing the perpetrators’ photos, but they were more hesitant about reporting on social media postings and public manifestos from shooters. The journalists supported the notion of reporting on community resilience in the aftermath of mass shootings and the recovery of survivors. That included the reporting on victim funerals. The journalists supported continued long-term coverage to provide solutions. However, they did not agree that the focus should only be on victims and not the perpetrators (Dahmena et al., 2019).

As for the differing roles, the study showed that reporters and columnists were more concerned about the criticism that too much of the coverage was on the shooters, while editors were more likely to support the idea that coverage needed to focus on the perpetrators. The study also showed that journalists perceived their roles in society as connected to whether the journalists wanted to focus more on the victims or on the perpetrators. Age was a factor as well. Older journalists were more inclined to agree with the current coverage while younger journalists were more inclined to say coverage was an ethical issue that needed to be examined. The majority of journalists were in favor of coverage of mass shooters, and most did not believe that it glamorized perpetrators. The majority of the journalists did not acknowledge a connection between the coverage and the contagion effect. “Understandably, journalists likely do not want to believe that their work contributes to further carnage and suffering, despite evidence showing that fame-seeking mass shooters and a contagion effect do, in fact, exist” (Dahmena et al., 2019).

One related issue to mass shooting reporting is how news media report on suicides. The World Health Organization (WHO, 2008) citing 50 years of research posted in 2008 media guidelines on the reporting of suicides to prevent imitational suicides. Those guidelines suggested things such as avoiding sensationalism, stressing that suicide was caused by many factors and avoiding repeating the details of a suicide. It also called for avoiding step-by-step descriptions of methods and limiting photos and images of celebrity suicides (WHO, 2008).

A similar set of guidelines was written by The Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training team in collaboration with the FBI. Those guidelines are part of the “Don’t Name Them” campaign, which aimed to curb media-induced imitational mass shootings and suggested minimizing the naming and descriptions of individuals involved in mass shootings (Meindl & Ivy, 2017). Other groups suggested that media present the shooter’s actions in a negative light, avoid in-depth descriptions of the shooter’s rationale and reduce the overall duration of news coverage while limiting the use of live press events:

Public pressure could be exerted on various media outlets and individual contributors to change their reporting tactics. . . . The first step toward building this public pressure is to make the general public aware of the link between the media and generalized imitation, as well as the role the media play in unknowingly perpetuating acts of violence. (Meindl & Ivy, 2017)

As for the amount of news coverage, research showed that not all mass shootings garner the same amount of media coverage (Schildkraut et al., 2018). An examination of 90 shootings between the years 2000 and 2012 in The New York Times looked at several factors including the race of the perpetrators, number of victims and the location. The article confirmed that the attack at Columbine High School in 1999 became a watershed event that helped propel mass shootings into the national discourse. It stated that not all acts of mass murder received the same amount of media coverage despite the sensational nature of the crimes (Schildkraut et al., 2018).

One reason some mass shootings received more coverage than others was the number of victims. The more total victims meant the more news stories and longer stories (Schildkraut et al., 2018). The number of victims in these shootings was one of the most influential factors that determined the amount of coverage. As for race, it was found that if the perpetrators were Asian or another ethnic group such as Middle Eastern, Indian, Native American or biracial, the incidents were more newsworthy and got more coverage than if the perpetrators were white. If the shooter died in the attack, it generally got less press coverage. It also showed that if the shooting happened at a school, it got a greater amount of news coverage than if it happened elsewhere (Schildkraut et al., 2018).

When it comes to the way the news media report on mass shootings, the idea of “routinization” emerges. As mass shootings have become common, the news media have developed routines in the way they are reported. Sargent (2022) reported that a new genre of reporter has emerged called “mass shooting correspondents.” Sargent wrote, “Many reporters now have a deep working knowledge of how to cover them, and some have tried to grow and develop their craft along with the experience.” Routines are essential to the consistent reporting of news, and mass shootings have become routine. Tuchman (1978) found that news organizations used routines to help them manage an ever-expanding amount of news that needs to be reported. Mass shootings have become so common that they are now part of a continuing news story, and news workers seek out continuing news stories to help them manage their workload. Tuchman, who researched decades before mass shootings became a routine news story, wrote, “The continuing news story is a boon to the reporter’s ability to control his or her own work, to anticipate specifically, and so to dissipate future problems by projecting events into a routine” (Tuchman, 1978, p. 57).

Mass shootings have become so routine that the typical routines of how to report on mass shootings have become common. Just as Tuchman noted in her research into the routines of news workers in the 1970s, news organizations in the 2020s know the routines about how to report on a mass shooting. “Dealing with a known form, the reporter knows which facts to seek from which centralized sources, even as the reporter searches out that stories idiosyncratic angle” (Tuchman, 1978, p. 103).

The Contagion Effect in Mass Shootings

Researchers examining the contagion effect contend that behaviors can be “contagious” and spread from person to person through the media. In the case of mass shootings, the contagion effect says that the reporting of one incident of mass shooting can lead to other incidents of mass shootings. The contagion effect has been documented in behaviors such as smoking cessation, binge eating and hijackings. “When applied to behavior, ‘contagion’ is a metaphor borrowed from epidemiology to explain how behaviors can spread across a group of people.” The contagion effect is similar to what others call informally the “copycat effect.” It is also called generalized imitation (Meindl & Ivy, 2017). There are several factors that lead to generalized imitation. Research has shown that people imitate behaviors that they see in the media. “When a mass shooting event occurs, there is generally extensive media coverage. This coverage often repeatedly presents the shooter’s image, manifesto, life story and details of the event and in doing so can directly influence imitation” (Meindl & Ivy, 2017).

Research has shown that mass killings involving firearms were related to similar events in the immediate past. On average, this temporary increase lasted 13 days. Towers et al. examined data on mass killings of more than four people in the United States between 2006 and 2013 that involved firearms. That research found significant evidence of contagion involving mass killings and school shootings. The research could not answer from where mass shooters get the idea for their attack because it reported that most perpetrators end up dead, either by suicide or law enforcement (Towers et al., 2015). Research on the related subject of teen suicide also connected media with increased imitation. One study examined teens’ use of social media. It illustrated how Instagram is a highly utilized platform for suicide attempts and self-harm communications among users with personal accounts, which is another indication that the contagion effect is related to suicide attempts (Carlyle et al., 2018).

Contagion is just one form of the broader theory of social learning, of which mass media play a prominent role. Social Learning Theory focuses on the ways that people learn things in society. People are not born knowing things, nor does genetics govern what people know. Instead, people learn things by experiencing things and observing things. They experience many things and observe lots of people. The news media provide one avenue for social learning. Much social learning occurs in casual or direct observation of others in everyday situations. However, people also learn by watching television, films and other visual media. People acquire attitudes and have emotional responses and new forms of conduct thanks to mass media. “The mass media play an influential role in shaping human behavior and social attitudes” (Bandura, 1977). This often comes at the expense of parents, teachers and other traditional role models of behavior. The mass media are a powerful form of social learning. “During the course of their daily lives, people have direct contact with only a small sector of the environment. Consequently, their perceptions of social reality are heavily influenced by vicarious experiences—what they see, hear and read in the mass media” (Bandura, 1977).

How the News Media Frame Mass Shootings

Studies on the news media dating to the late 1960s have produced a wealth of evidence about how the news media set the public agenda (McCombs, 1997). Agenda setting theory states that it is the news media that has an enormous impact on the issues that the public recognizes as significant. The pattern of coverage by the news media and the prominence that the news media places on issues affect what the public perceives to be important issues. McCombs examined how the news media help the public come to consensus. It found that no solutions are derived until the public determines the causes of a problem. Helping achieve consensus on issues is one of mass communications’ most important contributions to building community:

In setting the public agenda, the news media influence the salience or the prominence of that small number of issues that come to the command public attention. For the most part, the news media in democratic societies do not consciously and deliberately set the agenda. But they do set it inadvertently as a byproduct of the necessity to choose a few topics for attention in each day’s news report. Because agenda setting is an inadvertent outcome of reporting the news, this is a role that cannot be abdicated or sidestepped. The agenda setting role of the news media is an awesome ethical responsibility. (McCombs, 1997)

When news media extensively report on mass shootings, the public recognizes mass shootings as an important public issue.

The news media set the public agenda by reporting on issues through a series of consistent frames. “A frame repeatedly invokes the same objects and traits, using identical or synonymous words and symbols in a series of similar communications that are concentrated in a time” (Entman et al., 2009, p. 177). When it comes to reporting on mass shootings, journalists bring their understanding of mass shootings with them from previous experiences. This leads to mass shootings often being portrayed through similar frames even though each incident of mass shooting has a different set of facts. Once a frame is applied, the public and media react the same way to all similar incidents even if all the familiar frames are not applied. The frame becomes the dominant way that the news media report on incidents, and the public becomes familiar with these frames (Entman et al., 2009).

When it comes to framing the issues surrounding mass shootings, the news media often set the frame as an issue of mental health. A 2016 study showed that news articles that reported about the mental health history of perpetrators contributed to the public’s negative opinions about people with mental illness. This was true even if the reporting of the mass shooting perpetrators’ background did not mention the person’s mental health history. The reason suggested was that previous news reporting about the connection between mental illness and mass shootings leads people to have negative opinions about people with mental health issues. Even news reporting that attempts to mitigate the connections between mental health and mass shootings does not reduce the negative perception of people with mental illness. “The results suggest that media messages are very powerful tools in the perpetuation of negative attitudes and even news that does not specially mention mental illness may contribute to the stigma” (Wilson et al., 2016).

Another way to frame news coverage of mass shootings is as an example of the need for stricter gun control laws. Yet research into this frame indicates that extensive reporting of mass shootings does not translate into greater public support for strict gun control laws (Jang, 2019). The “boomerang” effect is one explanation for why more extensive coverage of mass shootings has not resulted in more support for stronger gun control laws, and research indicates it has hurt the effort. The boomerang effect is the phenomenon that people will react in the opposite way intended by the creator of the message because of the way the message is presented. This boomerang effect can be noticed in some public campaigns. When confronted with scary images of people suffering from cancer or dire warnings about lung cancer, some smokers feeling threatened thus strengthening their attitudes toward continued smoking. This same effect has been shown in campaigns combatting binge drinking. Research into anti-alcohol campaigns showed that some heavy drinkers who viewed anti-alcohol warnings showed a reduction in negative attitudes toward drinking (Brown et al., 2015). This boomerang effect was found to be operating in the news media’s reporting of mass shootings. “Although mass shootings have been increasingly occurring, public opinion favoring stricter gun control has declined” (Jang, 2019). One explanation for the boomerang effect is the Terror Management Theory. The theory says that the human desire to deny mortality underlies social behaviors and attitudes. “This means that greater exposure to news coverage of mass shootings that promotes death-related thoughts would reinforce citizens’ predisposed gun policy attitudes, subsequently leading to polarized public opinion” (Jang, 2019). The research is counterintuitive to those who would assume more coverage of mass shootings would result in more support for stricter gun control laws.

Another way to frame the reporting of mass shootings is as random acts of violence that happen on no predictable timetable or for no predictable reason. The mass shooting happens, and then the news media attempt to make sense of why it happened. Some suggest that the only possible reason for the tragedies is simply that perpetrators want publicity. It indicates that the way that the news media report on the mass shootings and the way the media offer details about the crime are the reasons there are more mass shootings. “The mass random shooter desires to achieve his own level of ‘fame’ and adopts a script based on the media reports to achieve it.” Greensmith and Green (2019) argue that as an ethical issue the news media should refrain from reporting the details of the mass shootings. That would include withholding the name and image of perpetrators. The pair argue that when a mass shooting is framed as a random act of violence, the reporting of the details serves no public good.

In some cases, mass shootings are not framed as random acts but rather motivated by factors such as politics, racism or homophobia, even though the news media rarely determine a precise motivation. In those cases, probing the motivations of the mass shooters can serve a common good. The public is served to know how political rhetoric, racist language or homophobic slurs motivate some people to become mass shooters. However, there is also an argument that the search for a motive for mass shootings is “an exercise in fruitless speculation and wasted resources.” Knoll and Pies (2019) argue that the media lack the necessary data to ever reach a sound conclusion on the motivation of a mass shooter. And even if a motive is identified, it is often rarely useful in helping reduce future mass shootings.

While the random act frame is common, it also suggests that the media itself is the trigger that contributes to mass shootings. While typically receiving less publicity than other frames, violent media is sometimes cited as a causal factor for mass shootings. Some argue that desensitizing media has effects on those who consume it, either causing them to be violent or triggering violent tendencies within people. This can include violent movies, violent literature or the case of violent video games. As for video games, that frame was set during the 1999 Columbine High School mass shootings where the young perpetrators were said to be intrigued with such games (Schildkraut & Elsass, 2016, p. 83). Yet it is all media, including traditional news organizations, who become part of the frame about why mass shootings happen.