News Media Coverage of Mass Shootings: How the Political Stance of News Media Influences the Coverage of Mass Shooters
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.47611/jsrhs.v10i1.1332Keywords:
Gun violence, Mental Health, News media, News, Guns, Death, ViolenceAbstract
Gun violence is a major public health issue in the United States and the news media has the power to sway the public’s opinions and beliefs on cases of mass shootings. The purpose of this research was to find “to what extent does the political bias of news media sources influence their portrayal of mental illness and violence when covering mass shootings?” The study followed an exploratory design, combining qualitative and quantitative methods for data collection and analysis. This study looked at 20 mass shootings listed on an open-sourced database from 2012-2016 and includes 108 news articles from 6 news media from the political spectrum. The relative frequency bar graphs showed that no news media outlets have a higher or more significant mention of “dangerousness” of mass shooters and the portrayal of mental illness in news articles. The Chi-Square test demonstrated that there was no substantial evidence to establish if there was or was not a link between the keyword use and median political leaning. Though the result does not support the hypothesis, the result does show news media in general does have a correlation with an increased stigma against mental illness. This knowledge can determine the roots of the misrepresentation of mental illness in relation to violence to educate the public and the news media better to stem the stigma against people with mental illness and more effective gun policies.
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