Abstract
This chapter examines news coverage of the 2018 shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. The shootings were unique for several reasons, in particular that several survivors became well known, even controversial activists following the event. News coverage in the 45 days following the shootings in newspapers from communities surrounding Parkland (Broward-Palm Beach New Times, Miami New Times, Sun-Sentinel, Miami Herald) and in national-level newspapers (New York Times, USA Today) was compared in regards to how the shootings’ salience, news coverage attributes, and shooter and victims/survivors were presented to news audiences. Results indicate that news coverage of the Parkland shootings was unlike coverage of previous shootings, both from utilizing the future level of time (rather than present) and the individual level of space (as opposed to the more commonly used societal) and by extending past the 30-day lifespan normally afforded to coverage of mass shootings.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Alanez, T., Fleshler, D., Hobbs, S., Huriash, L. J., McMahon, P., O’Matz, M., & Travis, S. (2018, December 28). Unprepared and overwhelmed: Two decades after Columbine and five years after Sandy Hook, educators and police still weren’t ready for Parkland. Sun Sentinel. Retrieved from https://projects.sun-sentinel.com/2018/sfl-parkland-school-shooting-critical-moments/.
Alanez, T., McMahon, P., & Geggis, A. (2018, June 1). “That’s Crazy Boy.” School watchman recognized but didn’t stop shooter before Parkland massacre. The Sun-Sentinel. Retrieved from https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/crime/fl-florida-school-shooting-campus-monitor-20180619-htmlstory.html.
Brezenski, T. F. (2018). Inside the 23rd Congressional District (FL) Gun Violence Task Force: Real-time crisis policymaking in the wake of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas school shootings. Journal of Multidisciplinary Research, 10(1/2), 35–49.
Cassidy, W. P., La France, B. H., & Babin, S. (2018). Routine adjustments: How journalists framed the Charleston shootings. International Journal of Communication, 12, 4669–4688.
Chyi, H. I., & McCombs, M. E. (2004). Media salience and the process of framing: Coverage of the Columbine school shootings. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 81(1), 22–35. https://doi.org/10.1177/107769900408100103
Dahmen, N. S. (2018). Visually reporting mass shootings: US newspaper photographic coverage of three mass school shootings. American Behavioral Scientist, 62(2), 163–180. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764218756921
Dahmen, N. S., Abdenour, J., McIntyre, K., & Noga-Stryon, K. E. (2017). Covering mass shootings: Journalists’ perceptions of coverage and factors influencing attitudes. Journalism Practice, 12(4), 456–476. https://doi.org/10.1080/17512786.2017.1326832
DeFoster, R., & Swalve, N. (2017). Guns, culture or mental health? Framing mass shootings as a public health crisis. Health Communication, 33(10), 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1080/10410236.2017.1350907
De Venanzi, A. S. (2012). School shootings in the USA: Popular culture as risk, teen marginality, and violence against peers. Crime, Media, Culture, 8(3), 261–278. https://doi.org/10.1177/1741659012443233
Ebbs, S. (2018, February 15). Survivors of Florida high school shooting call for action on gun control. The Washington Post. Retrieved from https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/survivors-florida-high-school-shooting-call-action-gun/story?id=53111278.
Goldman, A., & Mezzei, P. (2018, February 15). YouTube comment seen as early warning in shooting left little for F.B.I. to investigate. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/15/us/politics/nikolas-cruz-youtube-comment-fbi.html.
Gurney, K., Vassolo, M., Madan, M. O., & Smiley, D. (2018, February 18). How teachers and students became first responders—And heroes—In school shooting. The Miami Herald. Retrieved from https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/broward/article200597734.html.
Haider-Markel, D. P., & Joslyn, M. R. (2001). Gun policy, opinion, tragedy, and blame attribution: The conditional influence of issue frames. Journal of Politics, 63(2), 520–543. https://doi.org/10.1111/0022-3816.00077
Harry, J. (2001). Covering conflict: A structural-pluralist analysis of how a small-town and a big-city newspaper reported an environmental controversy. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 78(3), 419–436. https://doi.org/10.1177/107769900107800302
Hawdown, J., Oksanen, A., & Räsänen, P. (2012). Media coverage and solidarity after tragedies: The reporting of school shootings in two nations. Comparative Sociology, 11(6), 1–30. https://doi.org/10.1163/15691330-12341248
Hayes, C. (2018, February 17). Emma Gonzalez survived the Florida shooting. Now she’s taking on Trump and the NRA. USA Today. Retrieved from https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/02/17/student-emma-gonzalez-school-shooting-gives-passionate-speech-against-g/348357002/.
Hayes, C., & Perez, M. (2018, February 22). ‘It’s devastating’: Cop stayed outside during Florida massacre while students died. USA Today. Retrieved from https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/02/22/officer-florida-high-school-shooting-sat-outside-gunfire-sounding-he-should-have-stopped/365122002/.
Holody, K. J., & Daniel, E. S. (2016). Attributes and frames of the Aurora shootings: National and local news coverage differences. Journalism Practice, 11(1), 80–100. https://doi.org/10.1080/17512786.2015.1121786
Holody, K. J., Park, S.-Y., & Zhang, X. (2012). Racialization of the Virginia Tech shootings: A comparison of local and national newspapers. Journalism Studies, 14(4), 568–583. https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2012.726499
Hurka, S., & Neble, K. (2013). Framing and policy change after shooting rampages: A comparative analysis of discourse networks. Journal of European Public Policy, 20(3), 390–406. https://doi.org/10.1080/13501763.2013.761508
Iyengar, S. (1991). Is anyone responsible? How television frames political issues. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226388533.001.0001
Kennedy, K. (2018, February 15). Here’s what we know about Nikolas Cruz, the Florida school shooting suspect. The Boston Globe. Retrieved from https://www.boston.com/news/national-news/2018/02/14/nikolas-cruz-parkland-florida-school-shooting-suspect.
Lopez, G. (2018, March 26). It’s official: March for our lives was one of the biggest youth protests since the Vietnam War. Vox. Retrieved from https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/3/26/17160646/march-for-our-lives-crowd-size-count.
Maguire, B., Weatherby, G. A., & Mathers, R. A. (2002). Network news coverage of school shootings. The Social Science Journal, 39(3), 465–470. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0362-3319(02)00201-X
McCluskey, M. (2017). News framing of school shootings: Journalism and American social problems. Lanham, MD: Lexington.
McCombs, M. E., & Shaw, D. L. (1972). The agenda-setting function of the mass media. Public Opinion Quarterly, 36, 176–187. https://doi.org/10.1086/267990
Murphy, P. P. (2018, February 18). Exclusive: Group chat messages show school shooter obsessed with race, violence and guns. CNN. Retrieved from https://edition.cnn.com/2018/02/16/us/exclusive-school-shooter-instagram-group/index.html.
Muschert, G. W. (2007). Research in school shootings. Sociology Compass, 1(1), 60–80. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1751-9020.2007.00008.x
Muschert, G. W. (2009). Frame-changing in the media coverage of a school shooting: The rise of Columbine as a national concern. Social Science Journal, 46(1), 164–170. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.soscij.2008.12.014
Muschert, G. W., & Carr, D. (2006). Media salience and frame changing across events: Coverage of nine school shootings, 1997–2001. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 83(4), 747–766. https://doi.org/10.1177/107769900608300402
Newman, K. (2004). Rampage: The social roots of school shootings. New York: Basic Books.
Park, S.-Y., Holody, K. J., & Zhang, X. (2012). Race in media coverage of school shootings: A parallel application of framing theory and attribute agenda-setting. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 89(3), 475–494. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077699012448873
Reilly, K. (2018, February 15). The location of the Florida high school shooting was recently named the safest city in the state. Time. Retrieved from http://time.com/5159277/parkland-florida-high-school-shooting-safest-city/.
Rossman, S. (2018, May 18). Parkland students said, ‘We will be the last mass shooting.’ Now, they grieve with Texas. USA Today. Retrieved from https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2018/05/18/texas-school-shooting-parkland-students-now-grieve-santa-fe-texas/623265002/.
Rozsa, L., Berman, M., & Merle, R. (2018, February 18). Accused South Florida school shooter confessed to rampage that killed 17 people, police say. The Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2018/02/15/florida-school-shooting-suspect-booked-on-17-counts-of-murder-premeditated/.
Schildkraut, J. (2012). Media and massacre: A comparative analysis of the reporting of the 2007 Virginia Tech shootings. Fast Capitalism. Retrieved from http://www.uta.edu/huma/agger/fastcapitalism/9_1/schildkraut9_1.html.
Schildkraut, J., Elsass, H. J., & Meredith, K. (2018). Mass shootings and the media: Why all events are not created equal. Journal of Crime and Justice, 41(3), 223–243. https://doi.org/10.1080/0735648X.2017.1284689
Schildkraut, J., & Muschert, G. W. (2013). Violent media, guns, and mental illness: The three ring circus of causal factors for school massacres, as related in media discourse. Fast Capitalism. Retrieved from http://www.uta.edu/huma/agger/fastcapitalism/10_1/schildkraut10_1.html.
Schildkraut, J., & Muschert, G. W. (2019). Columbine, 20 years later and beyond: Lessons from tragedy. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger.
Silvan, J. R., & Capellan, J. A. (2018). The media’s coverage of mass public shootings in America: Fifty years of newsworthiness. International Journal of Comparative and Applied Criminal Justice, 43(1), 77–97. https://doi.org/10.1080/01924036.2018.1437458
Swisher, S., & McMahon, P. (2018, February 15). Nikolas Cruz passed background check, including mental health question, to get AR-15 rifle. The Sun-Sentinel. Retrieved from https://www.sun-sentinel.com/local/broward/parkland/florida-school-shooting/fl-florida-school-shooting-guns-20180215-story.html.
Trumbo, C. (1996). Constructing climate change: Claims and frames in US news coverage of an environmental issue. Public Understanding of Science, 5(3), 269–283. https://doi.org/10.1088/0963-6625/5/3/006
Vu, H. T., Guo, L., & McCombs, M. E. (2014). Exploring “the world outside and the pictures in our heads”: A network agenda-setting study. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 91(4), 669–686. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077699014550090
Wamsley, L. (2018, February 26). Broward sheriff under scrutiny for handling of Parkland shooting. NPR: The Two-Way. Retrieved from https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/02/26/588900401/broward-sheriff-under-scrutiny-for-handling-of-parkland-shooting.
Witt, E. (2018, February 19). How the survivors of Parkland began the never again movement. The New Yorker. Retrieved from https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/how-the-survivors-of-parkland-began-the-never-again-movement.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Holody, K.J. (2020). Attributes in Community and National News Coverage of the Parkland Mass Shootings. In: Matthews, J., Thorsen, E. (eds) Media, Journalism and Disaster Communities. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-33712-4_12
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-33712-4_12
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-33711-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-33712-4
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)