Criminology and Criminal Justice Commons^™

That’S News To Me: A Content Analysis Of The Portrayal Of Perpetrators Of Mass Murder In Mass Media Communications, Meghan Kenney

Sociology-Anthropology: Student Scholarship & Creative Works

The United States holds only five percent of the world’s population, but surprisingly 31 percent of global mass shootings. Previous literature defines a mass shooting as an incident where at least four individuals are shot and a mass murder as an incident where at least four individuals are killed. Mass shootings have been found to occur in bunches due to the exposure of mass shootings inspiring copycat shootings. Such inspiration has been potentially linked to media coverage of these events thus giving them “accidental advertising”. Limited research has empirically examined the news coverage of mass shootings through a content analysis. …