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Introduction
Violence in schools has seized media attention as they present a side of the adolescence or childhood that is beyond public imagination and creates extensive outcry. A more recent shooting occurred in Washington state high school where a teenager open fired in the cafeteria and then killed himself (Death Toll Rises to 5 in School Shooting, 2014).
Newspapers and television channels, the next day, are covered with this news with headlines like “2 Die, Including Gunman, in Shooting at Washington State High School” (Jhonson & Lovett, 2014), “’Senseless tragedy’: Second girl dies in Washington state high school shooting” (Molinet, 2014), and “Two Dead in Shooting at Washington State High School” (Phillips, Grind, & Elinson, 2014) are typical description of school shootout incidents.
The social and political impact of the news story is apparent with the rampant negative media coverage that creates a dislike for violence. The annual report on school crime and safety shows that the in 2012 there were 35 non-fatal and victimization in 2010 and 52 in 2013 for 1000 students within the age group of 12 to 18 years (Morgan, Kemp, Rathbun, Robers, & Synder, 2014).
Any event of violence in school is usually covered with great zeal by the media, and during its lifespan, the media often end up reframing the story by emphasizing on different attributes of the event (Menield, Rose, Homa, & Cunningham, 2001). Given this goal of the media, it is important to understand the motive of the media while broadcasting particular news.
To serve this end, the study aims to examine how media coverage of Marysville school shoot out has been covered by popular media in order understand the underlined media agenda. Thus, the study will answer two specific research questions:
- How does media coverage (on school violence) contribute to the cultivation of violence?
- What framing themes emerge?
The paper is divided into three sections. The first section presents a review of literature of similar events by academicians. The second section will discuss the background of the Marysville Pilchuck High School shooting episode and discuss the methodology and the data collection method.
The third section will discuss the specific case of Marysville Pilchuck High shooting and how media has framed the story of this particular event. Then the analysis portion will deal with the tying up of the primary findings with the theories derived from the literature review. This section will also entail a discussion of the limitations of this particular study.
Literature Review
Literature on school violence and media portrayal shows that there are three different forms of depiction of the story. Entman defines framing as a means “to select some aspects of a perceived reality and make them more salient in a communicating text” (1993, p. 52).
He stresses on the role framing plays in embedding the agenda in the text of the news and influences the thinking of the masses. Framing shows the power to communicate a text to the desired population and analysis of the framing of the news helps to understand the influence that the news may have on the human consciousness.
Scheufele defined framing as “social constructivism” and a point out that mass media deliberately “sets the frames of reference that readers or viewers use to interpret and discuss public events” (1999, p. 105). He distinguishes between two types of frames, namely individual frames and media frames.
His study clearly shows four types of structural dimensions of the news coverage of a particular event that influences creation of the frame: synthetic structure, script structure, thematic structure, and rhetoric structure (Scheufele, 1999). Synthetic structure implies the patterns in which the “words and phrases” are arranged in particular news.
Script structure refers to the “general newsworthiness of an event as well as the intention to communicate news and events to the audience that transcends their limited sensory experiences” (1999, p. 111). When journalists consciously try to impose a causal theme in their story in order to excite a specific statement or to link the story to a direct quote of a source, is referred to as thematic structure.
Rhetoric structure refers to the “stylistic choice” of a news report made by the journalist in order to create an intended effect with the story (Scheufele, 1999, p. 111). The literature shows that studies on media communication of events have always tried to frame a story in a particular way, in order to incite a desired opinion among the masses.
The review presents that studies of framing of events by the media should concentrate on finding how the news has been portrayed by the media and what is the nature of framing of the story. Earlier researches on violence in schools have concentrated on doing a content analysis of the coverage of the news events.
News coverage of violence in school has been studied by many researchers like Menield, et al. (2001) Chyi and McCombs (2004), Muschert and Carr (2006), Muschert (2009), Hawdon, Agnich, and Ryan (2014) et al. all conduct a content analysis of the news coverage to understand the media’s influence in framing the act of violence in school.
Muschert and Carr (2006) and Mushcert (2009) point out that the mass media plays a strong role in creating a Rashomon effect in covering a school shooting, wherein the masses experience school shooting through media coverage.
Muschert and Carr (2006) points out that framing creates a perception about the news among readers/viewers and the perception is susceptible to change with change in framing. In their selective dissemination of the news, media can choose to highlight certain parts of the event that they deem important (Chyi & McCombs, 2004; Muschert, 2009).
Thus, media framing of news events shows how framing of an event creates a perceptual difference among the masses. The media often end up being biased while framing the news. This paper will discuss the case of Marysville High School shooting based on the theory of media framing conceptualized by Scheufele (1999).
Methodology and Data Collection
Data Collection
The data for the research will be collected from online local and national news sources regarding the Marysville high school shooting that occurred in October 2014. The articles are located from open online sources for 10 days period from the day of occurrence of the event i.e. 24 October 2014.
Following the methodology adopted by Chyi and McCombs (2004) the paper will conduct a content analysis of the shooting coverage done by two national newspapers The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal and two local newspapers The Seattle Times and Marysville Globe in order to understand the change in framing of the story by a media.
This will allow us to understand the framing process over time and space dimension. Further, the changes in frame of the public dissemination of the news will help us to understand the spread of violence through media coverage. Further, studying the coverage done by four different newspapers will help understand the different natures of framing done by the media for this particular event.
Content Analysis
The first consideration of the analysis would be the area and number of days from the event is first considered. Then the total number of articles related to the events that were published by the newspaper in the 10 days. The number of words, lines, paragraphs, and pictures used for the articles were also counted for each article.
The language used for the headlines of the articles were examined in order to determine a consistent pattern of words or phrases used in them to describe the crime, the victims, the perpetrator, and the assumed reason behind the shootout.
The articles are further coded to understand the space frame and the period of the dissemination of the news. The space frame aims to understand if the articles were focused on individual’s story (i.e. the perpetrator, victim, or their family members, or others), community (i.e. the town, school, or ethnic community of the victims or perpetrator), regional (the area of the event), societal (i.e. nationwide interest) or international (Chyi & McCombs, 2004).
Marysville Pilchuck High School Shooting
Background
The Marysville high school shooting took place on 24 October 2014 in the Washington State High School where a 15-year-old student shot five of the other students and killed four of them. He then shot himself to death. This event evoked rampant media attention and created a plethora of public opinion. This event is the most recent vent of fatal school violence and has not yet been analyzed by researchers.
Media Coverage
In order to study the nature of media coverage this paper analyses the articles printed in the first 10 days after the incidence occurred on 24 October 2014. Two regional and two national newspapers are analyzed in order to understand the nature of the news coverage for the event.
The first phase of the analysis pertains to the number of articles published in the newspapers. In the first 10 days, the local news coverage in Marysville Globe was three articles for the event and Seattle Globe published five articles. The Wall Street Journal and New York Times published 3 and 5 articles respectively in the first 10 days covering the event.
The average number of unique words per article in Marysville Globe is 881 words and that in Seattle Globe is 1025 while that in Wall Street Journal is 687 and New York Times is 849. Therefore, on an average the coverage in terms of unique words per article is more in local newspapers than in national newspapers. However, the national newspapers have used more pictures in their articles than local newspaper.
Table 1: Media coverage in four newspaper and basic descriptive statistics.
Table 2: Analysis of the Headlines.
Table 2 presents the analysis of the headlines of the articles. The newspapers are clubbed based on their region of publication. The local newspapers are found to give less stress on the aspect of ‘shooting’ than the national newspapers.
The reference to the community, body of students, Marysville or Washington has been made more in the titles of national newspapers. The word gunman has been used twice in national newspaper titles and has not been used in local newspapers.
The analysis of the headline and the word count shows that the news articles different in focus on the event. The local newspapers were more inclined to portray the event as an incident and not incite anger among public. Hence, the more subdued headlines and fewer pictures.
Further, local newspaper headlines stressed on the community and the local society rather than the ‘gunman’ and ‘shooting’, whereas, that in the national newspapers concentrated on portraying the horror image of the incident with more rampant use of words like ‘shooting’, ‘gunman’, and ‘victim’ in its headlines.
A more detailed analysis of the words and phrases used in the articles of the newspapers show that the usage of words can show a lot about the nature of framing of the news by the newspapers. Table 3 presents the frequency of the words occurring in the articles analyzed in each paper.
The table shows that the occurrence of words like shooting/gun, and death/fatality occur more in national newspapers like the New York Times and Wall Street Journal. The stress on the occurrences of death due to a perpetrator creates a feeling of anger among the readers of this newspaper.
However, the local newspapers talk more of the community and the families and the effort the local community is doing to help those who have suffered a loss from the event. This news coverage spreads a more positive effect among the readers.
Table 3: Frequency of words that occurred most in the articles analyzed.
The New York Times has used the name of the perpetrator, Jaylan 38 times in 5 articles while it has only been used 4 times in Wall Street Journal and 14 times in Seattle Global. The repetition of the name of the perpetrator makes it easier for the readers to associate with the perpetrator while making his name associated with adjectives like shooter. The other three newspapers have used the name fewer times but have used adjectives like ‘shooter” more frequently.
The use and stress on the words related to death and fatality ignites a fear and anger among readers. The national newspapers have mostly concentrated on reporting the death tolls and the condition of the victims while the local newspapers were more concerned on showing the effect the incident had on the school, students, community, Marysville, and Washington.
Summary Analysis
The first articles published in each of the newspapers on 25 October 2014 showed that all three newspapers except Wall Street Journal had released the name of the perpetrator but not of the dead female victim. The Wall Street Journal article was divided into three sections – reporting of the event, comment of the authorities and community leaders, and finding a relation with other events of school shootout.
Clearly, the stress of the article lay on the ‘societal framing’ of the event that tried to make the event a national news. The article published in the New York Times concentrated more on the community and individual framing. Individual framing was the aim of the two local newspaper articles reviewed.
However, the later articles in the local newspapers were more concentrated on community framing and individual framing as the articles mostly concentrated on showing the condition of the victims and the background of the perpetrator. The community framing of the articles demonstrated the action the community and student body was taking to show solidarity and trace a future path for safety of the students has been reported in these articles.
Hence, three kinds of framing of news articles are observed in this paper – individual, community, and societal framing. Local newspapers mostly do individual and community framing while societal framing is more done in national newspapers.
The articles printed in the newspapers, especially the local newspapers, aimed specifically to divert the rising anger within the community with less focus on the horror of the day and news of recovery and closure. The articles in Seattle Globe tried to show how the community and the authorities were prepared to handle such an emergency.
Therefore, the local newspaper was framing the story in such a way to avert public anger. The national newspapers first reported of the mystery teacher who had supposedly stopped the shooting and talked of the day of the shooting more vividly. The repetitive account the shooting emphasized on the horrid picture of the violence and created animosity among readers.
Clearly, the media reporting of the local and national newspapers were varied and they framed the stories differently. One focused more on building a shocked community with the other recounted the horrors of the shooting. Obviously, the latter was more inclined to create an environment of anger while the former would create hope.
Discussion
Limitations and Weaknesses
The paper’s analysis is confined only to the newspaper articles of four newspapers. Widening the research to more newspaper would provide a clearer picture. Further, the timeframe of the analysis is confined only 10 days. However, greater number of days would provide better analysis. News media is not confined to newspapers.
Today news is disseminated faster through television broadcasting. Hence, the news broadcasted on television too must be analyzed in order to see the framing process. Further, the effect of the framing of news should be compared to the reaction of the readers through online blogging, social networking, and comments on the articles to see the way the news has affected them.
Suggestion
The paper suggests that future researchers should analyze both the newspaper and television news. Then compare the comments of the reviewers/readers/ and bloggers based on the articles in order to gather a two way understanding of the framing process.
Conclusion
News framing is a popular way the media uses to communicate news to the masses. Through the process of framing, media usually disseminates their own beliefs and tries to shape public opinion regarding the events.
For this purpose, the media subtly uses various measures to communicate news. This analysis of the school shooting at Marysville shows that the nature of news framing differs significantly between local and national newspapers.
References
Chyi, H. I., & McCombs, M. (2004). Media salience and the process of framing: Coverage of the Columbine school shootings. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly , 81 (1), 22-35.
Death Toll Rises to 5 in School Shooting. The New York Times. Web.
Entman, R. M. (1993). Framing: Toward Clarification of a Fractured Paradigm. Journal of Communication , 43 (4), 51–58.
Hawdon, J., Agnich, L. E., & Ryan, J. (2014). Media framing of a tragedy: A content analysis of print media coverage of the Virginia Tech tragedy. Traumatology , 20 (3), 199-208.
Jhonson, K., & Lovett, I. (2014). 2 Die, Including Gunman, in Shooting at Washington State High School. The New York Times. Web.
Menield, C. E., Rose, W. H., Homa, J., & Cunningham, A. B. (2001). The media’s portrayal of urban and rural school violence: a preliminary analysis. Deviant Behavior: An Interdisciplinary Journal , 22, 447–464.
Molinet, J. (2014). ‘Senseless tragedy’: Second girl dies in Washington state high school shooting. New York Daily. Web.
Morgan, R. E., Kemp, J., Rathbun, A., Robers, S., & Synder, T. D. (2014). Indicators Of School Crime And Safety, 2013. Bureau of Justice Statistics. Web.
Muschert, G. W. (2009). Frame-changing in the media coverage of a school shooting: The rise of Columbine as a national concern. The Social Science Journal , 46 (1), 164-170.
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.
Phillips, E. E., Grind, K., & Elinson, Z. (2014). Two Dead in Shooting at Washington State High School. The Wall Street Journal. Web.
Scheufele, D. A. (1999). Framing as a theory of media effects. Journal of communication , 49 (1), 103-122.
Do you need this or any other assignment done for you from scratch?
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