The purpose of my research project was to gain a deeper understanding of media coverage and analyze the rhetoric around mass shootings throughout the past four decades. The reason I chose this topic is due to the dramatic increase in mass shootings, hate crimes, and incidents of domestic terrorism in the past twenty years which has alarmed many individuals (Valcore and Buckler 2020). Evaluating the rhetoric around gun violence in media coverage of mass shootings, as well as the implications of mental illness, was crucial for comprehending how or if the language has changed with the increase of mass shootings in the United States.
From each of the last four decades, 1980-2020, I picked the mass shooting event with the highest number of causalities. I conducted content analysis on twenty-eight New York Times articles, seven from each decade, each from the week following the mass shooting event. I examined the text of the articles using both basic and interpretative content. I evaluated text to grasp ideas, viewpoints, or experiences related to mass shootings. I was able to comprehend how particular phrases or concepts were employed across articles using basic content analysis. This made it possible for me to identify trends or variations in the data. Similar to this, the interpretive content analysis gave me the opportunity to code certain words or phrases to gain a better comprehension of the underlying meanings of these phrases and concepts as well as how the discourse around gun violence has changed over time.
My findings pointed to an increase not only in mentions of mental illness but in news media rhetoric around mental issues in coverage of mass shootings between the 1980s through the 2010s. Because of the media’s emphasis on severe mental disorders in their news coverage of mass shootings, policymakers may decide to focus on addressing major mental health issues as a solution to gun violence rather than other factors (McGinty et al 2014). The aspect of mental illnesses in mass shootings is also important when talking about gun control and gun violence. I saw changes in discussions of gun violence and control over the four decades of my sample. When analyzing media, Pallin (2021) reports that more than one-quarter of media expressly mentioned a mass shooter and that one-third of stories included the term “gun control.” The public discourse about these issues and potential legislative remedies is reflected and driven by the news media, which is a significant source of information on severe social and health challenges like gun violence. This is further supported by my findings, the 1980s spoke about gun control and violence for a total of 14.2%. The 1990s collectively came to 71.4%, the 2000s to 57.1%, and finally, the 2010s had 100% of articles speaking on gun control and gun violence.
For future research, scholars could investigate the psychological and social elements that result in perpetrators of mass shootings acquiring violent tendencies. Second, it could be useful to study the effectiveness of alternative gun control measures in avoiding mass shootings might be the subject of more research. Third, scholars could study the ways in which various mental health therapies work at detecting and assisting those who could commit mass shootings. Fourth, studies could consider the influence of media coverage on mass shootings, including how the media presents these incidents and the perpetrators as well as whether media coverage may serve as an inspiration for copycat killings. Last but not least, future studies could examine new technologies and social media, and how they affect the dissemination of extremist ideology and the radicalization of those who could be prone to carrying out mass shootings.