Document 13245514

Framing Gun Violence: A Content Analysis of the Aurora Theater Shooting and the Newtown Shooting Julia (Dongyu) Li A Capstone Project Presented to the Faculty of the AU School of Communication in Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of Master of Arts in Public/Strategic Communication Supervisor: Prof. Caty Borum Chattoo April 27, 2013 1 Copyright © 2013/4/23 Julia (Dongyu) Li All Rights Reserved. To obtain permission to use material from this work, please submit a written request Via email to: julialdyjulia@gmail.com. Thanks. 2 Acknowledgement I would like to express my gratitude to Prof. Caty Borum Chattoo for being so helpful to guide me through the writing process, my friends for being supportive for the past months, my parents for giving me the opportunity to pursue my dream as a communication professional and my kitty Bean, without whom, the capstone could have finished a lot earlier. 3 Abstract Framing research about guns and its worst case, mass shootings, has existed for decades with the recognition that media has a huge impact on how important issues were perceived by the general public. This capstone examined the use of media frames in two recent mass shootings in the United States: the Aurora Theater shooting (August 2012) and the Newtown Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting (December 2012). The study examined the volume change of news articles over time and the frame-‐ changing process with regard to time (past, present, future) and space (individual, community, regional, national and international) contexts. Major findings of this capstone included: news articles about the two shootings followed the same pattern that the media did for the Columbine shooting in 1999 – as the benchmark in this area – even though it took a longer time for the media to process the changes in frames and to make the transition that focusing on the societal issues. The lax gun laws were recognized as the top blamable factor. Laws on the federal level were the most frequently mentioned, especially regulations on mental illnesses, ban on assault weapons, ammunition and extensive background checks were put on the public agenda with the support of the news media. 4 Table of Contents Introduction-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐ 6 Overview of the Shootings -‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐6 Shootings and Violent Environment in the U.S. -‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐7 Media Frames Around Shootings -‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐7 Significance of Studying Media Frames -‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐7 Agenda Setting, Framing and Chyi-‐McCombs’ Two Dimensional Measurement Scheme-‐9 Literature Review -‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐10 Gun Violence and Shootings in the U.S. -‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐10 • The Aurora Theater Shooting-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐11 • The Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting (Newtown Shooting)-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐12 • Agenda Setting Theory-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐13 • Framing Theory-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐13 o Framing and Shooting-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐14 o Framing Media Effects and Gun Violence-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐16 o Framing and Policy Change-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐17 o Chyi and McCombs’ Two-‐Dimensional Measurement Scheme-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐18 Method-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐ 20 Findings-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐21 Mention of the Shooting-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐22 Examination of Two-‐Dimensional Measurement Scheme-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐22 • Space Frames -‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐22 • Time Frames-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐ 26 • The Use of Time and Space Frames-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐27 Quoted Spokespeople-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐ 27 Blame Attribution-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐ 28 Law Mentioned-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐ 30 Solution-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐ 31 Discussion-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐ 31 The Aurora Theater Shooting-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐33 The Sandy Hook Elementary Shooting-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐ 33 Comparison of the Two Shootings -‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐ 34 • Gun Possession of a Second Amendment Right Issue-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐ 34 • Voice Against Gun Possession-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐ 36 Conclusion-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐ 36 Appendix-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐ 40 Part One: Codebook-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐ 40 Part Two: SPSS Output (Partial)-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐ 48 Reference-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐ 52 5 Framing Gun Violence: A Content Analysis of the Aurora Theater Shooting and the Newtown Shooting A 20-‐year-‐old man wearing combat gear and armed with semiautomatic pistols and a semiautomatic rifle killed 26 people – 20 of them were children – in an attack at an elementary school in central Connecticut on Friday, December 14, 2012 (Barron, 2012). The gunshots that rang out in the halls of Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, on that day ended many young students’ lives and raised national-‐level discussion about school safety, gun control and media’s role on social issues. The Newtown shooting was later recognized as the second deadliest school shooting accident in U.S. history after the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting (Vogel, S., Horiwitz, S., & Fahrenthold, D. A., 2012). The volume and attention drawn to the incident refreshed people’s minds of another shooting that happened only five months prior to the Newtown shooting– the movie theater shooting that took place in Aurora, Colorado – which, on the surface, carried many similarities with the recent shooting rampage. In the latter shooting, 12 people died while 59 others were injured on the midnight premiere of “The Dark Knight Rises” (Gabbatt, A., & Malik, S, 2012). Shootings and Violent Environment in the U.S. Mass shootings or school-‐related shootings seemed to cause more problems in the U.S. compared to other countries in the wake of tragedies such as the Virginia Tech shooting, the Columbine shooting, and even more recent ones, the Aurora Theater shooting and the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting (Newtown shooting). Gun issues could trace back to the deep-‐rooted gun culture and people’s rights as held by the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution; approximately 38 percent of all American households contained a gun and 23 percent had a handgun. In addition, many citizens perceived gun ownership as a fundamental right, even though 62 percent of Americans 6 favored stricter gun control (Dowler, 2013, p. 235). Surprisingly, not only did shootings happen frequently in the last two decades, they occurred when rates for most types of aggression and violence had achieved their lowest levels in years (Jenson, 2007, p. 1). Media Frames Around Shootings The development of media and technologies informed and shaped people’s decision-‐making process on social issues such as mass shootings; therefore, people generally felt skeptical about what and how media’s role achieved as the public watchdog to identify critical issues. Katz (1999) indicated that, political debates and media coverage were wrong to focus on “young violence” in headlines and stories (p.1); rather, they should look at the cultural and historical contexts of the issues to make sense of it. In addition, polls after Columbine showed that 1 percent of respondents volunteered guns as the contributor of the shooting; thus, even the prevalent of guns caused many problems, such confusing and discomforting events took firmer shape as indicators of putative problems when framed by the media and the political actors they reported on (Birkland, T. A. & R. G. Lawrence, 2009, p. 1409). Mixed public opinions toward shooting cases reflected the nature of media frames that the description of an issue or the label used in news coverage about the issue, which made it more important to understand the use of those frames (Scheufele, D. A. & D. Tewksbury, 2007, p. 14). Significance of Studying Media Frames The topic of random mass shootings – and school shootings in particular – was prominently addressed in the State of Union and inauguration speeches of President Barack Obama, thereby inevitably increasing attention as a central focus of the president’s second term. According to Haider and Joslyn (2001), political events and policy discussion helped to determine how an issue came to be defined (p. 520); however, there were three other possible factors that led to the increase in attention 7 toward the tragedies. First of all, as the second deadliest school shooting accident in the U.S. history, the severity of the shooting immediately accelerated the heat around the issue. Also, with the impact that came upon the occurrence of the Aurora Theater shooting five months ago, memories associated with losses of families and friends were evoked again due to the many similarities of the two accidents. Although the two shootings did not directly generate impact among the similar public, both incidents contributed to the new thinking of moral practices of the society and issues around gun control at the state and national level. Despite of the fact that each individual shooting received a great amount of media coverage, understanding of framing patterns within mainstream news media helped us look at media’s role in broader settings beyond numbers. Shootings did not happen in isolation (Kleck, 2009, p. 1449). The severity of shootings brought people’s attention to how the society looked at this unresolved recurring issue in the U.S., and as expected, issues across many disciplines had been raised as the causes or influencers of the tragedies. Jenson (2007) argued that violence was linked with the mental illnesses of the perpetrators, and that was probably why much of the news coverage about shooting cases focused on the mental health issues. Flannery (2008), on the other hand, blamed the government’s failure to act upon gun violence in schools that facilitated the shooter’s killing spree (p. 294), which led to the discussion about precautions that should be taken to prevent the tragedies from happening: legislative efforts, prevention programs, parent interventions and so force. Another overarching point that required more research was how the government went about gun control policies, including debates about possession of guns as fundamental rights, the problems with easy accessibility of guns from eligible sources, and many other aspects. 8 Agenda Setting, Framing and Chyi-‐McCombs’ Two Dimensional Measurement Scheme Informed by agenda setting theory, framing theory and Chyi and McCombs’ two-‐ dimensional measurement scheme, this capstone paper examined news coverage of chosen mainstream news outlets two months after the shootings to identify and clarify different frames used by the Aurora Theater shooting and the Newtown shooting as well as the level of intensity media had for more and less salient news event that add to knowledge about the media coverage of shootings incidents in the United States (Muschert & Carr, 2006, p. 760). Particularly, this capstone looked at how agenda setting, which emphasized mass media’s impact toward people’s perceptions on social issues, dealt with frame-‐changing patterns over time and space pertinent to shootings, as a specific news category (Hsiang, L., & C. Maxwell, 2004, p. 26). Space frames and time frames were used to summarize media frames as the result of empirical studies; space frames dealt with different scales of frames used in the coverage, ranging from individual frames, to community frames, regional frames, national frames and international frames. Each space frame represented a level of public attention given to the issue; yet, time frames helped people examine news coverage’s with reference to past incidents, accounts of current events or future implications. By putting the two shooting cases into theoretical contexts, this capstone examined how the chosen news outlets organized the frames about the two highly controversial and complex tragedies. With this foundation and context in mind, this paper addressed the following research questions: Did news outlets portray the Aurora Theater shooting and the Newtown shooting differently? • How many news stories were distributed during the two months time frames? And how were they distributed during the news life span? 9 • How was the distribution of news in terms of space frames? • How was the distribution of news in terms of time frames? • What was the relationship between the use of space and time frames? This capstone began with a review of the literature that involved agenda setting, framing, and shooting-‐related issues in the U.S., and it continued with an explanation of the capstone’s methodology – content analysis – along with results of research, implications of those results, and a final conclusion that pointed toward additional research to be completed in this area. Literature Reviews Gun Violence and Shootings in the U.S. School shootings or mass shootings seemed to be a unique American issue, relative to other countries, in the wake of tragedies such as the Virginia Tech shooting, the Columbine shooting, and even more recent ones, the Aurora Theater shooting and the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting (Newtown shooting). Studies showed that between 1990 and 2008, there were 14 multiple fatality shootings on college campuses; and between 2000 and 2010, 445 school shootings of this type occurred in the United States (De Venanzi, 2012, p. 262). Even though the number of the shootings decreased in early 1990, the fear toward this unusual phenomenon in the United States remained the same (De Venanzi, 2012, p. 261). Larkin (2009) defined rampage shootings by three major characteristics: intention to shoot, the gun was discharged with at least one hurt and attempt to shoot more than one, and hurt at least one not specifically targeted (p. 1310). Recent school shootings differed from shootings decades ago in that the locations of the shootings migrated from the inner city to the suburbs, and seemingly moved from vengeance against individual students to indiscriminate retribution in the suburbs. However, the 10 unchanged element was the revenge against bullying and negative influence of the mass media on youths (De Venanzi, 2012, p. 262). Muschert and Carr (2006) also defined rampage shooting as an institutional attack that took place on a public stage before an audience was committed by a member or former member of the institution, and involved multiple victims, some chosen for their symbolic significance or at random (p.751). The Aurora Theater Shooting On July 20, 2012, the night The Dark Knight Rises premiered at the Aurora Town Center, James Holmes, 24, who was later identified as the gunman, first tossed two gas canisters and began shooting into the crowd during a shooting scene at about 12:38 a.m. Later, he went out to the aisle and shot at random people, while the motive remained unknown. Twelve people were killed and a total of 58 people injured during the shooting, and Holmes was later arrested by the police near his car parked behind the theater (“Aurora, Colo,” 2012). The gunman, James Holmes, who identified himself as “The Joker,” was a PhD student who withdrew from his neuroscience studies at the University of Colorado. Before the shooting, he had purchased four guns from legal sources, including a .223 caliber Smith & Wesson assault rifle, a Remington 12 gauge shot gun, a .40 Glock handgun and a Glock pistol, from local shops and the Internet (“Aurora, Colo,” 2012). At the current stage, Holmes’ attorneys were trying to plead him not guilty under the Insanity Defense Law, which may change the dynamics of the ruling procedures (Banda, 2013). The Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting (Newtown Shooting) Twenty-‐six people – 20 students and six adults – were shot and killed at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut on December 14, 2012. Adam 11 Lanza, 20, killed his mother before going to school to do with more killing. The shooting took place when classes were under way and roughly 700 students were present. Adam, who took his own life after the killing, brought three guns from the house, including a semi-‐automatic AR-‐15 assault rifle and two pistols to the school (“Sandy Hook Shooting,” 2012). Adam was considered to have some kinds of personality or developmental disorders, and he kept a low profile, recalled by his former classmates as smart, but also a person who seldom interacted with people. Several months prior to the shooting, the school updated its security system, which required visitor identifications to enter the school. Yet, according to Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy, Adam literally shot an entrance into the building (“Sandy Hook Shooting,” 2012). And according to a quoted source, he chose the school because it was the easiest target with the largest cluster of people (THR, 2013). The huge social impact school shootings posited on children, parents and community (De Venanzi, 2012, p. 262) showed a sharp increase toward the public’s concern over teenagers, the influence of guns, and the relations between entertainment industry and guns (Birkland, T. A. & R. G. Lawrence, 2009, p. 1405). Private funds, organizations, and non-‐profit mental health clinics were all working together to help parents and children live through this hard time. Yet, the Newtown shooting, which raised a national conversation about school shootings and stricter gun control legislation, became an even more complicated issue as it created a national shortage of guns as well as the flourishing of advocacy campaigns, which identified gun possession as a Second Amendment right issue (“The Sandy Hook Effect,” 2012). Agenda Setting Theory Agenda setting theory referred to the idea that there was a strong correlation between the emphasis mass media had on certain issues and the importance attributed 12 to these issues by mass audiences (Scheufele, D. A. and D. Tewksbury, 2007, p. 11). Media identifies the salience of issues and topics that was perceived of importance (Weaver, 2007, p.1), and agenda setting set the tone for what publics would think about in terms of social issues. Once an object appeared on the media agenda, the volume of cumulative news coverage increased its salience (Hsiang, L., & C. Maxwell, 2004, p. 24). Attribute agenda setting, the second-‐level agenda setting, examined how media organizations selected and presented certain characteristics, properties of an object, and how that selection and presentation influenced the public’s perception of an object and its attributes (Hsiang, L., & C. Maxwell, 2004, p. 23). Framing Theory While agenda setting theory defined what publics thought about, framing theory dealt with how people formed opinions around an issue. Specifically, compared to agenda setting, framing focused on the salience of attributes of issues, selecting some aspects of the reality to make it standout in the communication process. Framing was the process of making aspects of an issue more salient through different modes of presentation and therefore shifting people’s attitudes (Scheufele, D. A. and D. Tewksbury, 2007, p. 15). It was becoming more of an instructional use to understand how public opinion formed because the overall idea of framing tended to be ambiguous and comprehensive (Weaver, 2007, p.3). Framing was formed based upon the assumption that how an issue was characterized in news reports could impact on how it was understood by audiences. Specifically, on the macro level, the modes of presentation that journalists and other communicators used to present information in a way that resonated with existing underlying schemas among their audiences; on the micro level, framing described how people used information and presentation features regarding issues as they formed an 13 impression (Scheufele, D. A. and D. Tewksbury, 2007, p. 11). Different from second-‐level agenda setting, framing tended to look at the broader picture of the issue, which also incorporated more cultural aspects, based upon the accessibility and public interests (Weaver, 2007, p.2). To people who held different opinions on looking at framing as an equivalent concept as second-‐level agenda setting, framing also included a broader range of cognitive processes moral evaluation, causal reasoning, appeal to principles, and recommendations for treatment of problems (Weaver, 2007, p.5). Framing and Shootings The use of framing over shootings helped media introduce messages to people and monitor the patterns of people’s reactions on social issues. The Columbine shooting was not really the first shooting case in U.S. history; however, this tragedy shed light on many social issues and the research around it created a benchmark for how future shootings should be studied. From a theoretical perspective, there was not a standard criterion set for the public to make sense of why gun violence did not end after wartime and became a serious social problem in the civilized world. Thus, the Columbine shooting was recognized as the “defining event” to help journalists develop new frames of coverage for this type of incident. In addition, Columbine created different kinds of media frames because the discussion around the issue was incorporated into multiple realms. For instance, some frames being created around the Columbine shooting dealt with narcissism (creating hostile relationships), location of schools (likelihood of involving in the case), school administrators’ preference for zero-‐tolerance policies and the self-‐referent nature of the popular culture system (De Venanzi, 2012, p. 262). The analysis of news coverage of the Columbine shooting completed by De Venanzi also suggested the use of individual frames (mental illness/ identity of shooters, access to guns/peer relationship and family neglect), community frames (local 14 youth social dynamics, school contexts, community cohesion and community climate), social and cultural frames (educational context, masculinity, political climate and culture of violence) when it comes to understanding shootings (p.268). Youth violence always invited speculation about societal causes (Birkland, T. A. & R. G. Lawrence, 2009, p. 1406), and similar studies also found that violence that involved youth was more likely to create larger societal impact. Other articles that dealt with framing-‐changing in the media coverage also suggested six types of key frames used by the media to inform the society about what the next step was: actors, actions, consequences, reactions, commentaries, and background elements (Muschert, 2009, p. 167). Researchers found that the majority of news coverage looked at the public reactions, including discursive (major reaction about what happened), outside community (political meetings, sports-‐related issues, and reactions at school in other communities), community (exert reactions within the community, lots of portrays of funerals and memorials, students returning school) and police reactions to the shooting. Interestingly, one study also indicated that news coverage around shootings and school shootings revealed two predominant frames: blaming guns and pop culture, which matched with rhetorical themes emphasized by Democratic and Republican politicians in the days that followed Columbine. By the same token, political environment always drove the evolution and development of media frames. In the context of this capstone, Republicans tended to blame popular culture for the increase in shootings. For instance, Republicans blamed Hollywood for creating young killers with films like The Basketball Diaries, The Matrix, and Natural Born Killers, along with music videos and video games (Birkland, T. A. & R. G. Lawrence, 2009, p. 1409). And during the time of the Columbine shooting, congressional Democrats and President Clinton linked the shooting with gun laws immediately. 15 However, framing was a changing concept and posited no continuous impact on public opinion because of passage of time, the dynamics of issue-‐attention cycle, and frames within frames, including individual rights frame against limitation on gun ownership (Birkland, T. A. & R. G. Lawrence, 2009, p. 1410). Framing, Media Effects and Gun Violence Media frames were the central organizing idea for news content that supplied a context and suggested what the issue was to create a nature of reality through the use of selection, emphasis, exclusion and elaboration (Weaver, 2007, p.2 & Muschert, 2009, p. 164). People relied on a media-‐constructed version of reality to create a mental shortcut when they were making sense of complex issues, such as gun violence and shootings (Callaghan, 2001, p.184). In past decades, media did a better job as the watchdogs and guardians to serve the public interests (Callaghan, 2001, p.186). Yet, the level of trust and credibility that media established and cultivated at times dropped gradually because some journalists now might mix facts, analysis and build story reports to serve their own purposes (Callaghan, 2001, p.184). Media picked on dramatic events, which explained why news coverage on media violence escalated at an exponential rate in the years following the Columbine shootings (Mcintyre, 2003, p. 1618) and declined around 2001 when there were less shooting incidents (Muschert, 2007, p. 65). Lastly, mass media played an integral role in forming the public perception toward school shootings as a social problem. For instance, media highlighted dramatic and undermined long-‐term examination and followed a pattern, from being in the center of public interest issues to social problem involving children, parents and community that generally received intense news coverage, even though media attention around shootings declined in 2001 (Muschert, 2007, p. 65). 16 Gun control was the most salient and long-‐standing topic in U.S. debates (Callaghan, 2001, p.185). The two polarized opinions, or frankly, two frames that pulled the ideas away from each other were the pro-‐control frames used by Handgun Control Incorporated and the anti-‐control frames represented by National Rifle Association (NRA). Yet, the two frames did not receive the same weight in the sense that pro-‐control frames always dominated political debates, meanwhile 47 percent of the network coverage focused on youth and gang violence, random massacres, and controling the spread of violence in society (Callaghan, 2001, p.194). On the flip side, anti-‐control frames, such as guns deter crime, used by NRA, received less prominent exposure (Callaghan, 2001, p.196). In addition, the way news media looked at gun issues evolved from violence prevention to assault weapons ban, repeal of the assault weapons ban, school violence, gun show loophole, and to violence in the media (Mcintyre, 2003, p. 1618). Going back to the nature of media industry, which was used to portray social issues in ways that fit in certain representations, gun violence and shootings were characterized as a problem emerging from inadequate gun control legislation (Muschert, 2007, p. 66), even though political discourse tended to blame mass media as a catalyst for shootings (Muschert, 2007, p. 67). Framing and Policy Changes The intertwined relationship between media frames and policies was fascinating because even for people who actively participated in political news or linked their votes to the issue positions, they were at the mercy of the media and other interest groups (Callaghan, 2001, p.183). Simply put, by highlighting policy-‐specific questions, policy makers used framing to concentrate their attention and zero in on different frames to work around the resources they had (Birkland, T. A. & R. G. Lawrence, 2009, p. 1406), while normal people followed the identified topics in the media to make sense of their 17 positions and shape perceptions toward certain issues. Studies on the Columbine shooting also affirmed that the shooting also linked directly to the demand of stricter gun laws. Chyi and McCombs’ Two-‐Dimensional Measurement Scheme The two-‐dimensional measurement scheme (space-‐time scheme) developed by Chyi and McCombs was an important and practical model to monitor media efforts to reframe and emphasize different attributes to keep the story fresh and live across time and space dimensions (Birkland, T. A. & R. G. Lawrence, 2009, p. 1407). The nature of news cycle determined an issue, no matter how profound it once became, wouldn’t stay at the media focal point for long. Therefore, media outlets were expected to expand on the original impact of the issue to tell their own stories in a related, memory-‐refreshing but different way. Building upon the concept of issue-‐attention cycle, which introduced the time dimension, media frames followed the process of discovery, gaining prominence and fading from the public interests (Hsiang, L., & C. Maxwell, 2004, p. 23). The life span of a typical issue had been empirically described as 18.5 months, while the news cycle for the Columbine shooting was about one month (Muschert & Carr, 2006, p. 752). For shooting cases in particular, volume and patterns of news coverage peaked within two to four days, but always diminished during the following months. The space-‐time model looked at media framing-‐changing from micro to macro levels (Hsiang, L., & C. Maxwell, 2004, p. 25): • Space frames: On the individual level, issues would be framed with a scope limited to the individuals involved in an event; the community level looked at frames that were relevant to a community events and reactions; on the regional level, frames were related to a more general population, usually examined the impact to other states about a certain issue; the societal level frames concerned 18 about issues with social and national significance; and lastly, the international level frames helped forming international perspectives. According to Dowler (2013), among the news coverage that followed the Columbine shooting, 48 percent utilized societal frames, 29 percent of them were community frames, followed by 21 percent on individual frames. In addition, societal, community and individual frames made up a third of the news articles after the incident. And about the end of the month, societal frames became the 80 percent of the news coverage (p. 753). At the end of the first month, news articles were found to focus on national and societal-‐level aspects. The finding was also confirmed by Muschert and Carr that during 1997 and 2001, media frames in the news coverage were found to start from focusing on individual, community frames to societal frames, and later going back to community frames on the date of monthly anniversary (Birkland, T. A. & R. G. Lawrence, 2009, p. 1408). Generally, media frames dealt with micro levels at the earlier stages and focused more on broader impacts in the long run. • Time frames: All news coverage dealt with either present, past (frames about related events or historical events) or future frames (frames that made prediction about future development or dealt with impact of the events). Seventy-‐eight percent of the news coverage on Columbine shooting employed present frames, compared to future (12%) and past frames (10%) (Dowler, 2013, p. 754). Methods A content analysis was performed to identify different frames and attention created within the chosen time period in news articles about the Aurora Theater Shooting and the Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting (Newtown Shooting), both to 19 examine the specifics of each and compare elements of the two. Informed by Two-‐ Dimensional Measurement Scheme, this capstone examined three major questions: (1) the distribution of the news in terms of space frames (frames on the individual, community, regional or national/societal level); (2) the distribution of news in terms of time frames; (3) and the relationship between the use of space and time frames. Yet, international frames, normally included in the space frames, were not examined because this research only focused upon the domestic impacts that generated by the two shootings. By examining news coverage two months after each shooting (Aurora: July 20, 2012 to September 20, 2012; Newtown: December 14, 2012 to February 14, 2013), the paper unfolded the way mainstream news outlets addressed this type of overarching event and concluded the role media played in guiding an audience to make sense of what happened around them. Two specific U.S. news outlets were chosen for this project, given their agenda-‐ setting qualities and high circulation: The New York Times and The Washington Post. The Washington Post, in addition to its impact, provided a strong perspective to understand the political conversation and legislative concerns raised due to the impact of both shootings. News articles used for the capstone were retrieved from LexisNexis and Factiva databases for the purpose of obtaining articles of the highest quality and quantity, with the exclusion of blogs, abstracts, editorials and announcements. News articles with fewer than 200 words were also excluded due to the lack of information to examine. A total of 61 articles were yielded for the Aurora Theater Shooting and 188 articles were examined for the Newtown Shooting. To secure the most relevant news articles around the shootings, key words including “Newtown,” “Shooting” and “Aurora,” “Gun Control,” and “Theater” were utilized based on the previous studies to analyze the Columbine shooting. By choosing two months after the shootings, the 20 researcher was able to follow the typical issue-‐attention cycle of high profile shooting accidents, which proposed that an issue was believed to last one and a half month before fading out from the focal point; thus, two months was an ideal time period to examine the changing frames that kept the story alive and fresh. Coding instruments were designed separately for each shooting, though the majority of sections remained the same for both. The key difference in two coding instruments was that, the Newtown Shooting, compared to the Aurora Theater shooting, was intended to understand the media attention toward school, school safety and students. The complete instruments were included in the first section of the appendix and the major sections were listed below: • Basic description of the news articles • Different space frames (individual, community, societal/national) covered in the news • Different time frames (past, present, future) covered in the news • Laws related to mass shootings and guns presented in the news • Quoted spokespeople • Possible solutions addressed to resolve the problems in the wake of mass shootings Findings SPSS was used to interpret data and cross-‐tabulate between related data points. A total of 249 news articles from The Washington Post and The New York Times were coded in this research. To get a better picture the ways two shootings were portrayed in the news, the following sections were structured to investigate the similarities and differences within the news articles. Mention of the Shooting 21 Proportionally speaking, 44 percent of news articles addressing the Newtown shooting mentioned the general information about the shooting, the number of victims and survivors, while 74 percent of articles had specific reference to the Aurora Theater shooting. Examination of Two-‐Dimensional Measurement Scheme Space Frames Space frames mapped out the content distribution in the news articles examined. Individual frames referred to any description about a person, including personal information, mental illnesses of the shooter, victims that related to any individual and a particular shooting. Community frames examined how communities were affected by the unfortunate tragedies; political gathering, community meetings, funerals and relevant events were also included for this capstone. Regional frames looked at the impact the two shootings had on other states; for instance, the demand for stricter gun control laws, the increase of political meetings in the wake of the shootings, and disputes among gun advocates, leading by NRA, gun control supporters and politicians. Finally, the societal and national frames took a closer look at the broader contexts, including gun violence, the attention to mental health problems and many larger issues raised due to the occurrence of the shootings. Chart 1: The Aurora Theater Shooting 22 Chart 2: The Newtown Shooting The following chart showed that in comparison to the Aurora shooting, which had a relatively stable and even distribution of frames with individual frames as the most prominent ones, the Newtown shooting had a heavier emphasis on regional frames and societal frames. Each shooting might touch on one or more frame types. Chart 3: Frames Distribution in the News Articles Frames/Shootings Newtown Aurora Individual 37 percent 71 percent Community 22 percent 51 percent Regional 62 percent 41 percent Societal/ National 75 percent 61 percent Chart 4: The Aurora Theater Shooting 23 Chart 5: The Newtown Shooting • Individual Frames The name of the shooter was mentioned in 16 percent of news coverage in the Newtown shooting and 57 percent of coverage in the Aurora Theater shooting. In terms of the specific problem attribution to each shooter, Adam Lanza’s personality disorder was mentioned only four times in 188 articles, compared to seven times out of 61 articles in the Aurora shooting. Bullying, which normally accounted for one main contributor to campus shootings, was covered in 12 percent of news coverage for the Aurora Theater shooting and only one case (0.5 %) in news articles about the Newtown shooting. Yet, when it comes to the depiction of victims, 8 percent of news articles talked about students of the school and 18 percent of news articles for the Aurora Theater shooting made a reference to the audiences in the theater. • Community Frames News accounts related to community frames for Aurora (51%) almost doubled the one in Newtown (21%). To rank the four major sections based on frequency, the 24 most influential activity was political gathering (21%), followed by community meetings (20%), funerals in the community (18%) and theater/recreation venues’ events (5%) in response to the shooting, and community frames ranked differently for Newtown by placing community meetings (9%) at the first, followed by political gathering (9%), funerals (8%) and school-‐related events (2%); • Regional Frames Proceeding to regional frames, 41 percent of news articles for the Aurora Theater shooting dealt with its impact on other states while 62 percent of news articles for the Newtown shooting mentioned reactions of other states, including the demand for extensive mental screening process, stricter gun access laws and etc. • Societal Frames With 75 percent for the Newtown shooting and 61 percent for the Aurora shooting, societal frames were the most prominent space frames among all for both shootings. Therefore, the researcher was able to conclude that the two high profile shootings agitated heated discussion on public safety concerns (Newtown: 48%, Aurora: 46%), followed by the demand of better mental health programs and mental illness identification (Newtown: 28%. Aurora: 26%). In addition, on-‐campus safety measures concerning students’ wellbeing at schools (14%) became another notable issue, and the news media listed the legacy of gun violence that resulted in the unhealthy violent culture as another issue that showed up prominently among societal frames. In addition to the most prominent societal frames, 13 percent and 15 percent of news articles in the Aurora Theater shooting and the Newtown shooting specifically referred to people’s perceptions to recognize gun ownership as their Second Amendment rights. Categorizing shootings as part of the mental health issue in the 25 society was also a large portion of the societal frames; 26 percent of news accounts for the Aurora Theater shooting and 28 percent for the Newtown shooting mentioned mental illnesses or mental health issues were related to the shootings and even gun violence in general. However, education about gun usage (none in both cases) and research in this area (Aurora: 2%; Newtown: 3%) was not covered significantly in both shootings. Time Frames Recognizing that news coverage was always strongly affected by issue-‐attention cycles to stay relevant, this research identified a similar trend with regards to the declining attention toward the issue. Specifically, news coverage of both shootings followed the same pattern of having a large focus on present frames, in that roughly 67 percent of the articles devoted to present frames (the depiction of current issue and the impact it had). The Aurora Theater shooting (56%) outnumbered the Newtown shooting (45%) in terms of the use of past frames, which referred their arguments to historical cases, gun laws or specific gun issues. And the use of future frames was seen more heavily in the Newtown shooting (11%) than the Aurora Theater one (7%) across the two months period. News coverage around both shootings experienced a significant decrease as time passed by and reached a relatively low level at the end of the second month. Compared to the Newtown shooting, news coverage around the Aurora Theater shooting decreased steadily, because the amount of news coverage for the previous one had its ups and downs through time and peaked twice, though the second peak in the mid-‐ January 2013 was softer than the one at the end of the first week. 26 The Use of Time and Space Frames The last question this capstone examined was the intertwined relationship between space and time frames in uncovering important media frames used by online news outlets. • Aurora: Based on the analysis (included in Part Two in the Appendix), top frames that combined space and time were individual/past frames (28%), individual/present frames (28%), followed by societal/present frames (25%). • Newtown: Top three frames that combined space and time were societal/present frames (97%), followed by regional/present frames (83%), and societal/past frames (62%). Quoted Spokespeople Comparing the two bar graphs below, directly quoting government officials (i.e., senators, politicians) outnumbered others in both shootings; 39 percent of news articles covered the Aurora Theater shooting and 15 percent of news articles about the Newtown shooting included direct quotes from government officials. Quotes from President Obama and Vice President Biden were examined separately from government officials, and it turned out that 10 percent of news articles included President Obama’s words in the Aurora Theater shooting and 7 percent of news articles mentioned his thoughts on the Newtown shootings. Also, people who had relatively close relations to the shooter or victims did not show enough present to be prominent, at least directly in the news accounts. Furthermore, gun advocates, articulated here as people from NRA and prominent figures from other pro-‐gun organizations were quoted in Newtown (18%); but by contrast, they were not included in the news coverage of the Aurora shooting. Finally, “peace” advocates, whom referred as pro-‐control advocates, people 27 from anti-‐guns organizations or people who hold firm believe in the negative outcomes that would bring from the prevalent of gun possession, were quoted in 9 percent and 7 percent of news articles for the Aurora Theater shooting and the Newtown shooting. Chart 6: The Aurora Theater Shooting Blame Attribution Chart 7: The Newtown Shooting This capstone also looked at how news outlets, keeping their strong leading force in people’s perception in mind, attributed blames to be accountable for the tragedies. The following pie chart showed that the top three reasons to blame in the Newtown shooting were: lax gun control laws, prevalent gun culture and the influence of pop culture; on the same note, weak gun law was also identified as leading cause of the 28 Aurora shooting, followed by a same recognition on gun culture and mental illness as well as the academic failure of the shooter who was not able to finish graduate school. • Aurora: When it comes to blame attribution, news coverage that gathered for this capstone all touched on at one or more issues to blame for the occurrence of the shooting. Among those, blaming the lax gun laws received the most attention (31%) followed by the consequences of the prevalence gun culture as well as negative influence on people’s perception toward gun use and mental disability of the shooter received the most attention (both at 20%). By contrast, pop culture, a lack of intervention (support) and government were not seen as “blame agents” for the tragedy. Chart 8: Blame Attribution -‐ The Aurora Theater Shooting • Newtown: Compared to the previous chart, the following one touched on fewer factors. Specifically, weak gun laws were still the top one blamable factor, followed by violent culture and popular culture. Yet, there was no identification of parents’ responsibility, poor peer relationship the shooter had with his cohort, low education level of the shooter or the lacking of morality values mentioned as a contribution factor to the tragedy. Chart 9: Blame Attribution -‐ The Newtown Shooting 29 Law Mentioned Many of the articles encountered at the exploratory phase for the capstone mentioned different laws relating to gun use in the United States, but the coded articles did not mention a lot about specific laws. Rather, on the federal laws level, Newtown surpassed Aurora by incorporating federal laws that dealt with firearms in approximately 55 percent of the news coverage, leaving only seven percent of the Aurora news accounts mentioned the federal-‐level laws. On the state level, the capstone looked at the influence of shootings on how states within the country resonated with each other on this overarching issue. Yet, only 10 percent in Newtown and 7 percent in the Aurora’s news coverage put some attention to those laws. Taking a closer look at the specific laws mentioned in the news articles, 27 percent of the Newtown articles mentioned background check laws and 13 percent of the Aurora articles mentioned the related laws. Among news accounts for the Aurora Theater shooting and the Newtown shooting, concealed gun laws and Second Amendment Ratified were covered in five to seven percent in those articles. In addition, Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act (PAST) was specific referred in 8 percent of the Aurora news articles and 9 percent of the Newtown news articles. 30 Solutions Among the articles that proposed solutions to solve this unique American gun problem, more than half of the articles (67%) in the Newtown shooting suggested government’s regulations as the top solution. Some key concepts suggested in the articles as solutions were: increase government spending on mental health programs (Aurora: 25%, Newtown: 29%), implement stronger enforcement of existing gun laws (Aurora: 5%, Newtown: 6%), implement assault weapons bans (Aurora: 30%, Newtown: 59%), ammunition bans, and more extensive background checks before any gun purchase. In addition, 10 percent and 7 percent of the articles, respectively, highlighted the inevitable role of society and media in response to the shootings for the Newtown and the Aurora, respectively. The mention of the family’s influence was almost nonexistent, with only 2 percent for the Newtown shooting and 3 percent for the Aurora Theater shooting. Discussion This capstone looked at how media generated different perspectives through news articles for the Aurora Theater shooting and the Newtown shooting. Specifically, the way news articles were distributed, the distribution of news articles in terms of space and time frames and the intertwined relationship between two main frames. Space frames dealt with the scale of frames, ranging from individual accounts to societal issues; and time frames looked at whether the news media focused more on the historical issues, description of present issues or the current issue’s impact to the future. When it comes to gun violence and shootings, research around the Columbine shooting set the tone for understanding frames of public problems, as a communicative process of highlighting and focusing on a certain aspect of reality (Birkland, T. A. & R. G. 31 Lawrence, 2009, p. 1406). This capstone built on the two-‐dimensional measurement scheme created by Chyi and McCombs to investigate how the Newtown shooting was covered in the news with the understanding of how the Columbine shooting was studied, and if it was different from the Aurora Theater shooting and why. Similar to the pattern found in the Columbine shooting, in which the volume of the news coverage peaked within two to four days, the number of news coverage for both shootings peaked within a week after the crisis hit. However, news coverage on the Aurora Theater shooting followed the anticipated pattern, while news coverage on the Newtown shooting took a bit longer to peak and peaked a second time at the end of the first month. This general finding resonated with the fact that youth violence always invited speculation about societal causes, showed in the news coverage on the Newtown shooting in the later stage, which also caused a second peak after the one month (Birkland, T. A. & R. G. Lawrence, 2009, p. 1405). According to Chart 4 and Chart 5, the Aurora Theater shooting focused more on individual frames while the Newtown shooting dealt with regional societal and national impact. More importantly, the political environment at the time might also explain the differences between news accounts of both shootings. To be specific, the latest presidential campaign contributed to a more tangible political environment that affected the decision-‐making process of many large issues. The media coverage of the Aurora Theater shooting and the Newtown shooting, which happened two to three months before and after this huge political event, were affected by the event to different extents. The Newtown shooting generated more new accounts about the gun issues, ranging from pushing guns as well as armed personnel at schools, looking for stricter gun laws as a prevention strategy and seeking for better way to balance the gun legacy and the individual rights of gun possession. 32 The Aurora Theater Shooting The Aurora Theater shooting focused more on the shooter’s identification as well as how James Holmes became a cold-‐blood killer after he dropped out of school. Even three days after the shooting, details were still emerging about Mr. Holmes, a budding scientist who was doing graduate work at the Anschutz Medical Campus of the University of Colorado, Denver, before he dropped out and who once received a prestigious grant from the National Institutes of Health (Healy &Frosch, 2012). Media continuously focused on how Holmes fell from grace by having some mental issues; James Eagan Holmes did have an all-‐too-‐familiar story, an intense young man became unmoored, obsessed, unhinged, somehow divorced from reality. Those who noticed the change had no authority to do anything. He assembled a high-‐powered arsenal obviously meant not for sport but for killing (Stolberg & Kantor, 2013). Another news article even talked about the way he decorated his home – the elaborate web of incendiary and chemical devices – in Holmes’ anticipation of the investigation by law enforcement following the shooting. News about Holmes’ mental problems was extended as one of the blamable factors later on; for instance, a graduate student who went to the same school with him said she had received text messages from him, full of worries. The Sandy Hook Elementary Shooting (Newtown Shooting) Compared to the Aurora Theater shooting, news articles about the Newtown shooting focused more on regional frames and societal frames. Immediately after the Newtown shooting, media turned to broader issues including how other states reacted on the shooting. Some states modified the gun laws to stricter levels while others remained firm on their positions for not changing anything on the existing laws, but rather, came up with alternatives to explain the shooting. For instance, Illinois remained 33 the only state in the nation with no provision to let private citizens carry guns in public and New Hampshire recognized the use of guns as sports and part of the culture (Bidgood, 2013). New York seemed to react more overtly about gun violence in the wake of the Newtown shooting. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo was also recognized as the strong contributor who made the toughest gun law right after the shooting. Governor Cuomo said in one of the articles that, “I think what the nation was saying now after Connecticut, what people in New York were saying was ‘Do something, please” (Kaplan, 2013). Comparison of the Aurora Theater Shooting and the Newtown Shooting Gun Possession as A Second Amendment Right Issue Both shootings focused on societal frames to different extents. It was widely recognized in the Aurora Theater shooting that gun possession was a Second Amendment Right issue and there was nothing the government could do to prevent gun violence by regulating the use of guns; specifically, Phyllis Everitt, a 65-‐year-‐old resident of Aurora, Colo., believed that there was nothing could be done if penetrators like James Holmes were able to purchase guns from legal sources and had made plans to conduct the shooting (Sussman, 2012). On the same note, even gun-‐control supporters were expected to accept that Americans had this individual, common-‐law right since Jamestown and the Plymouth Colony; that this right was recognized in the Second Amendment to the Constitution in 1791; and that the Supreme Court affirmed its constitutionality in 2008 (Whitney, 2012). However, this news article made a good point by stating that to resolve the gun issue, gun advocates and gun-‐control supporters needed to reach an agreement about what Second Amendment Rights’ role in this matter. Besides recognizing gun possession as an important right, people should stop insisting that gun ownership was an absolute right. Bearing firearms was originally 34 recognized as the duty in defense of community or country, as part of militia service, so until this stage, it was more important to find a coexisting position that could balance gun ownership and public safety (Whitney, 2012). Although 15 percent of news articles about the Newtown shooting mentioned gun possession as a Second Amendment Right issue, the current research found that reporters took slightly different approaches to articulate this issue, referencing the impact of Second Amendment rights and bringing up gun possession as necessary action and part of the American culture. Gun possession was necessary in many ways: • First, the problem depended on how people, especially young people, used guns rather than the prevalence of guns. Larry Potterfield, the founder of Midway USA, one of the nation’s largest sellers of shooting supplies and a major sponsor of the Scholastic Steel Challenge, said that kids needed arm strength and good patience to learn to shoot a handgun well in the 12 -‐14 age group for most kids (Mcintire, 2013). • Also, gun possession was recognized by a lot of people as a way to protect themselves. Gun sales after the Newtown shooting went up dramatically, because many people believed the only thing that stopped a bad guy with a gun was a good guy with a gun (Hamburger, 2012). Although only 0.5 percent of news articles of the Newtown shooting confirmed this assumption and recognized the increase in mental health screening as the solution to mass shootings, gun sales did go up in the reality. • Relating to the first point, gun owners believed any shooting tragedy was a single case and could not generate larger implications toward laws and regulations toward guns. For instance, Steve Drake, the owner of the Gun Den in Shelbyville, 35 Indiana, said it was ridiculous to ban guns and there was no way for anyone to control the actions of insane people. • Gun culture was also deeply embedded in the American culture, where marketers constantly invested in marketing campaigns to attract young people to participate in semiautomatic-‐handgun competitions, classmates competed with each other on how well they could shoot, and how guns were part of their daily lives (Moss &Rivera, 2012). Voices Against Gun Possession According to Chart 6 and Chart 7, it was interesting that in news articles about the Aurora Theater shooting, there was almost no mention of pro-‐gun advocates and limited accounts of pro-‐control/peace advocates. Rather, news articles about the Newtown shooting hit on both sides almost equally. Experts in child psychiatry said that encouraging youthful exposure to guns, even in a structured setting with an emphasis on safety was asking for trouble (Mcintire, 2013). Besides criticizing gun use as a safety measure, people who are against of gun possession also stated that too many marketing efforts on guns was making things worse. In addition, government officials, including State Representative Stephen Shurtleff stated that the way law enforcement dealt with firearms was not appropriate and effective to take guns off the street (Bidgood, 2013). Conclusion In July 2012, 12 people were killed at a movie theater in Colorado; five months later, 26 people were killed at a small school in Connecticut. These two serious accidents shared two similar traits: gun shooting that involved a single perpetrator. The two accidents were sad enough, but as part of the culture, where many households owned handguns for protection and deep-‐rooted beliefs about gun possession, the gun control problem was not an easy thing to understand or solve. Therefore, different 36 frames were adopted by the news media with the hope to change and monitor people’s perceptions on social issues, especially large and prominent ones. Understanding the use of frames on shootings was important because many of the issues involved were also showcasing the political agenda and generating society’s concerns on many social issues, including mental illnesses, gun laws, and research that should be done in the area. Agenda setting theory, framing theory and the two-‐dimensional measurement scheme informed the actual research. To be more specific, agenda setting theory looked at media’s emphasis on issues and the attribution to the importance of a particular issue. Framing theory helped people understand the public opinion on complicated issues. And the two-‐dimensional measurement scheme, as the finding of empirical studies over the years, looked at how media frames varied across time. For the purposes of this capstone, space frames looked at if the news articles were using individual frames, community frames or national frames, and time frames looked at media frames involving past, present or future instances. Through the literature review, the Columbine shooting really set the tone for research in this area, and this capstone was able to conclude that many of the findings in this research resonated with many of the previous studies on the Columbine shooting. For instance, youth violence always invited more speculation on social issues, and the two prominent frames that came out since that time were the blame gun frames and the blame pop culture frames. For a long time, people took sides on this issue because when it comes to complicated issues, directly taking what the media offered saved people’s energy to make sense of the world. However, this mental shortcut, relied heavily on the media’s orientation and required the news media to serve its watchdog role. 37 Informed by the Columbine shooting, this capstone chose to analyze more than 200 articles pulled from The New York Times and The Washington Post to help people understand the differences between the Aurora Theater shooting and the Newtown shooting. Surprisingly, the Aurora Theater shooting was mentioned more in the coded articles compared to the Newtown shooting. The news articles about the Newtown shooting did have more variations in terms of frames use. And when it comes to the media frames, the Aurora Theater shooting and the Newtown shooting both started off with individual frames that helped people pick up on the issue, and ended with societal frames that fit in different agendas, mainly political agenda. Also, the Aurora Theater shooting focused more on the past and historical events, compared to the Newtown shooting, which focused more on the present contexts. Although it was not explicitly mentioned in any news articles for both shootings, the magnitude of the involvement of children was believed to push the Newtown shooting ahead of many other things that were going on at that period of time. The limitations of this research focused on the time constraints and limited articles that pulled from the chosen news outlets. For future research, more articles should be examined to be able to capture a more complete picture of the ways shootings were portrayed. Also, more diverse groups of news outlets should be used if the findings of the research are intended to generalize to broader audiences or issues. For media and communication professionals, it was inevitable and necessary to follow the agenda set for a particular issue, but exercising media’s leadership role in guiding people to understand things is more in line with professionalism of this industry. For instance, news articles about both shootings quoted government officials as well as the president and vice president, which caused an increase in the volume of news coverage; yet, more voices from the prominent figures are needed to help push 38 gun control in the agenda that is not simply about pop culture and gun possession, but also action-‐driven – what should be done. Therefore, stricter gun control laws, stronger mental health programs, education and attention about gun violence should be implemented to enhance the effectiveness of gun control laws. 39 Appendix Part One: Codebook Aurora Theater Shooting Media Frames Coding Instrument NO (N) = 0; YES (Y) = 1 SECTION A: DESCRIPTION OF ARTICLE Network News Outlets 1. New York Times 2. Washington Post Pub Date: [dd-‐mm-‐yyyy] Day of Week 1. Monday 2. Tuesday 3. Wednesday 4. Thursday 5. Friday 6. Saturday 7. Sunday Length (in words) [2-‐4 digits] Type 1. News 2. Opinion/Editorial SECTION B: LEVELS OF FRAMES USED IN NEWS COVERAGE Numbers of victims (mentioned): N Y Killed and wounded Space frames: individual, community, societal and national Individual frames N Y Shooters N Y Identification of the shooter N Y Name N Y Gender N Y Race N Y Age N Y Mental illness/ mental health issue (problems) N Y Depression N Y Suicidal tendencies N Y Mixed personality disorders 40 N Y N Y N Y Anti-‐social behaviors (aggression to those around them, cruelty, lying, manipulation, drug and alcohol use) N Y Peer relationship N Y Romantic rejection N Y Victim of bullies N Y Physical bully: when someone is hit, punched, pushed or have their personal items stolen and any other kind of physical, aggressive contact N Y Social bully: when someone is left out of games, deliberately ignored and has bad things spread about them and made to feel like an outsider N Y Cyber bully: happen in chat rooms, online, instant messaging, on a mobile phone or even e-‐mails N Y Parents of the shooter N Y Father N Y Mother N Y Siblings of the shooter N Y Other relatives of the shooter N Y Family relationship N Y Neglect (alone, no communication among family members) N Y Physical abuse N Y Poverty N Y Inattention to education N Y Violent environment (i.e., parents’ fighting) Victims / audience N Y Identification of the victims N Y Name N Y Gender N Y Race N Y Age N Y Parents of the victims N Y Father N Y Mother N Y Other relatives of the victims Survivors N Y Audiences N Y Relationship with the victim N Y Significant others N Y Friends N Y Parents/ children Other people (non-‐relative of the victims) in the community Police/ law enforcement N Y N Y Community frames (where the shootings took place) N Y Political gathering and campaigns N Y Community meetings (town hall meetings, church meetings, church vigil, candle light vigil) N Y Funerals for the victims and other memorials N Y Other theaters’ reactions to the shooting 41 Societal/ national frames N Y Levels of safety in the theater/ recreation areas N Y Public safety issues (laws and regulations that protect the safety of people) N Y Culture of violence N Y Widespread availability and acceptance of guns / gun ownership N Y Possession of guns as Second amendment rights N Y Possession of guns as individual rights N Y Popular culture/Hollywood/ Entertainment industry N Y Media violence: video games, music, and movies N Y Decline in moral values N Y Lack of region N Y The message about masculinity N Y Education level N Y Lack of research on gun violence/ gun control Time frames: past, present, future N Y Past frames N Y Columbine shooting N Y Virginia Tech shooting N Y Present frames N Y Future frames SECTION C: BLAME ATTRIBUTION N Y Weak gun laws N Y Violence depicted in the media/entertainment industry N Y Inadequate education/ low education level N Y Violent family environment N Y Parents N Y Mother N Y Father N Y Mental illness of the shooter N Y Poor peer relationship N Y Lack of morality N Y Lack of religion/ God N Y Government/ justice system N Y Gun advocates/ gun advocacy organizations (i.e., National Rifle Association) SECTION D: LAWS MENTIONED N Y Federal law N Y Background check N Y Concealed gun N Y Second Amendment Ratified N Y Child Access Prevention Laws for Guns (CAP) N Y Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act/ Assault Weapons Ban (AWB: ban the manufacture, possession, and importation of new 42 N Y semiautomatic assault weapons and large-‐capacity ammunition feeding devices (or magazines) for civilian use) N Y Gun Control Act N Y National Firearms Act N Y Federal Firearms Act N Y Law Enforcement Officers Protection Act N Y Firearms Owners’ Protection Act N Y Crime Control Act N Y Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act State law N Y Gun control in general N Y Background check N Y Concealed gun SECTION E: SOURCES OF GUN N Y Gun shows N Y Other licensed vendor (Wal-‐Mart, private stores) N Y Unlicensed vendor N Y Friends N Y Parents SECTION F: QUOTED SPOKESPEOPLE N Y Mother of the shooter N Y Father of the shooter N Y Other relatives of the shooter N Y Father of the victim N Y Mother of the victim N Y Other relatives of the victim N Y Government officials N Y Police/law enforcement N Y President N Y Vice president N Y Shooter’s lawyer N Y Psychologists/social workers/counselors/psychiatrists N Y Gun advocates SECTION G: SOLUTIONS N Y Government regulations N Y Increase government spending on mental health screening, treatment and mental health support N Y Banning the sale of assault and semi-‐automatic guns/ stricter gun laws N Y Ban handguns and bullets N Y More extensive background checks N Y Better enforcement of existing gun laws N Y Restrict sale of automatic handguns N Y Better communication/ cooperation between political parties 43 N Y Crack down on illegal immigration N Y Tougher criminal justice and sentencing N Y Society/media N Y Decrease the depiction of gun violence on TV, in movies, and in video games N Y No identification of the person responsible for the shooting N Y Allow people to carry guns for their own protection N Y Emphasis moral values N Y Less media coverage of shootings/ don’t sensationalize N Y Counseling N Y Family/parents N Y Americans need to be aware/ speak up about possible dangers of guns N Y Better parenting/ hold parents accountable Newtown Shooting Media Frames Coding Instrument NO (N) = 0; YES (Y) = 1 SECTION A: DESCRIPTION OF ARTICLE Network News Outlets 3. New York Times 4. Washington Post Pub Date: [dd-‐mm-‐yyyy] Day of Week 8. Monday 9. Tuesday 10. Wednesday 11. Thursday 12. Friday 13. Saturday 14. Sunday Length (in words) [2-‐4 digits] Type 3. News 4. Opinion/Editorial SECTION B: LEVELS OF FRAMES USED IN NEWS COVERAGE Numbers of victims (mentioned): N Y Killed and wounded Space frames: individual, community, societal and national Individual frames N Y Shooters 44 N Y N Y N Y Identification of the shooter N Y Name N Y Gender N Y Race N Y Age N Y Mental illness/ mental health issue (problems) N Y Depression N Y Suicidal tendencies N Y Mixed personality disorders N Y Anti-‐social behaviors (aggression to those around them, cruelty, lying, manipulation, drug and alcohol use) N Y Peer relationship N Y Romantic rejection N Y Victim of bullies N Y Physical bully: when someone is hit, punched, pushed or have their personal items stolen and any other kind of physical, aggressive contact N Y Social bully: when someone is left out of games, deliberately ignored and has bad things spread about them and made to feel like an outsider N Y Cyber bully: happen in chat rooms, online, instant messaging, on a mobile phone or even e-‐mails N Y Parents of the shooter N Y Father N Y Mother N Y Siblings of the shooter N Y Other relatives of the shooter N Y Family relationship N Y Neglect (alone, no communication among family members) N Y Physical abuse N Y Poverty N Y Inattention to education N Y Violent environment (i.e., parents’ fighting) Victims N Y Identification of the victims – students N Y Name N Y Gender N Y Race N Y Age N Y Parents of the victims – students N Y Father N Y Mother N Y Siblings of the victims N Y Other relatives of the victims N Y Identification of the principle N Y Identification of the victims – teachers Survivors N Y Students N Y Teachers 45 N Y Other people (non-‐relative of the victims) in the community N Y Police/ law enforcement Community frames (where the shootings took place) N Y Political gathering and campaigns N Y Community meetings (town hall meetings, church meetings, church vigil, candle light vigil) N Y Funerals for the victims and other memorials N Y Other schools’ reactions to the shooting Societal/ national frames N Y Levels of school security N Y School programs in preventing school violence N Y Safety programs N Y Disciplines N Y Zero-‐tolerance N Y Public safety issues (laws and regulations that protect the safety of people) N Y Quality of peer relationship among students N Y Culture of violence N Y Widespread availability and acceptance of guns / gun ownership N Y Possession of guns as Second Amendment Rights N Y Possession of guns as individual rights N Y Popular culture/Hollywood/ Entertainment industry N Y Media violence: video games, music, and movies N Y Decline in moral values N Y Lack of region N Y The message about masculinity N Y Education level N Y Lack of research on gun violence/gun control Time frames: past, present, future N Y Past frames N Y Columbine shooting N Y Virginia Tech shooting N Y Present frames N Y Future frames SECTION C: BLAME ATTRIBUTION N Y Weak gun laws N Y Violence depicted in the media/entertainment industry N Y Inadequate education/ low education level N Y Violent family environment N Y Parents N Y Mother N Y Father N Y Mental illness of the shooter N Y Poor peer relationship 46 N Y Lack of morality N Y Lack of religion/ God N Y Government/ justice system N Y Gun advocates/ gun advocacy organizations (i.e., National Rifle Association) SECTION D: LAWS MENTIONED N Y Federal law N Y Background check N Y Concealed gun N Y Second Amendment Ratified N Y Child Access Prevention Laws for Guns (CAP) N Y Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act/ Assault Weapons Ban (AWB: ban the manufacture, possession, and importation of new semiautomatic assault weapons and large-‐capacity ammunition feeding devices (or magazines) for civilian use) N Y Gun Control Act N Y National Firearms Act N Y Federal Firearms Act N Y Law Enforcement Officers Protection Act N Y Firearms Owners’ Protection Act N Y Crime Control Act N Y Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act N Y State law N Y Gun control in general N Y Background check N Y Concealed gun SECTION E: SOURCES OF GUN N Y Gun shows N Y Other licensed vendor (Wal-‐Mart, private stores) N Y Unlicensed vendor N Y Friends N Y Parents SECTION F: QUOTED SPOKESPEOPLE N Y Mother of the shooter N Y Father of the shooter N Y Other relatives of the shooter N Y Father of the victim N Y Mother of the victim N Y Other relatives of the victim N Y School officials N Y Teachers N Y Government officials N Y Neighbors N Y Police/law enforcement 47 N Y President N Y Vice president N Y Shooter’s lawyer N Y Psychologists/social workers/counselors/psychiatrists N Y Gun advocates SECTION G: SOLUTIONS N Y School N Y Increase the police presence at schools N Y Stricter security measures for public gatherings N Y Education programs about the danger of gun use N Y Psychological counseling/ intervention N Y Government regulations N Y Increase government spending on mental health screening, treatment and mental health support N Y Banning the sale of assault and semi-‐automatic guns/ stricter gun laws N Y Ban handguns and bullets N Y More extensive background checks N Y Better enforcement of existing gun laws N Y Restrict sale of automatic handguns N Y Better communication/ cooperation between political parties N Y Crack down on illegal immigration N Y Tougher criminal justice and sentencing N Y Society/media N Y Decrease the depiction of gun violence on TV, in movies, and in video games N Y No identification of the person responsible for the shooting N Y Allow people to carry guns for their own protection N Y Emphasis moral values N Y Less media coverage of shootings/ don’t sensationalize N Y Counseling N Y Family/parents N Y Americans need to be aware/ speak up about possible dangers of guns N Y Better parenting/ hold parents accountable Part Two: SPSS Outputs (Aurora Shooting as Example) Aurora Theater Shooting SPSS Outputs SECTION A: TIME FRAMES Past_Frames Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent Valid .0 27 44.3 44.3 44.3 1.0 34 55.7 55.7 100.0 Total 61 100.0 100.0 48 Present_Frames Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent Valid .0 20 32.8 32.8 32.8 1.0 41 67.2 67.2 100.0 Total 61 100.0 100.0 Future_Frames Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent Valid .0 57 93.4 93.4 93.4 1.0 4 6.6 6.6 100.0 61 100.0 100.0 Total SECTION B: SOCIETAL FRAMES Theater_Security Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent Valid .0 51 83.6 85.0 85.0 1.0 9 14.8 15.0 100.0 60 98.4 100.0 1 1.6 61 100.0 Total Missing System Total Mental_Program Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent Valid .0 45 73.8 73.8 73.8 1.0 16 26.2 26.2 100.0 Total 61 100.0 100.0 Public_Safety_Issue Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent Valid .0 33 54.1 54.1 54.1 1.0 28 45.9 45.9 100.0 Total 61 100.0 100.0 Violent_Culture Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent Valid .0 40 65.6 65.6 65.6 1.0 21 34.4 34.4 100.0 49 Total 61 100.0 100.0 Pop_Culture Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent Valid .0 56 91.8 91.8 91.8 1.0 5 8.2 8.2 100.0 61 100.0 100.0 Total SECTION C: BLAME Education_Level_Low Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent Valid .0 61 100.0 100.0 100.0 Lack_Research Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent Valid .0 60 98.4 98.4 98.4 1.0 1 1.6 1.6 100.0 61 100.0 100.0 Total Weak_Laws Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent Valid .0 50 82.0 82.0 82.0 1.0 11 18.0 18.0 100.0 Total 61 100.0 100.0 Violent_In_Media Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent Valid .0 60 98.4 98.4 98.4 1.0 1 1.6 1.6 100.0 61 100.0 100.0 Total Violent_Family_Culture Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent Valid .0 54 88.5 88.5 88.5 1.0 7 11.5 11.5 100.0 61 100.0 100.0 Total Mental_Cause 50 Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent Valid .0 54 88.5 88.5 88.5 1.0 7 11.5 11.5 100.0 61 100.0 100.0 Total Lack_Religion Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent Valid .0 Missing System Total 60 98.4 1 1.6 61 100.0 100.0 100.0 Lax_Government Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent Valid .0 59 96.7 96.7 96.7 1.0 2 3.3 3.3 100.0 61 100.0 100.0 Total Lack_Intervention Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent Valid .0 60 98.4 98.4 98.4 1.0 1 1.6 1.6 100.0 61 100.0 100.0 Total Economy_Pressure Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent Valid .0 57 93.4 93.4 93.4 1.0 4 6.6 6.6 100.0 61 100.0 100.0 Total Gun_Advocate Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent Valid .0 60 98.4 98.4 98.4 1.0 1 1.6 1.6 100.0 61 100.0 100.0 Total 51 Bibliography Barron, James. 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