Attributes and Frames of the Aurora Shootings

Abstract

The present study examined frames and second-level agenda-setting attributes used by national and local newspapers to cover the 2012 Aurora, Colorado shootings. Unlike research examining coverage of school shootings, this study examined a mass shooting that did not occur at a school. Both newspaper types published a similar number of articles—though national articles tended to be longer—and virtually stopped coverage after 18 days. While previous coverage tended to focus on shootings’ societal implications, Aurora coverage focused more on individuals involved in the time immediately surrounding the shootings. National papers focused on the gunman, while the local press tended to focus on victims. Mass shootings in general tend to be salient news items, but the present study further shows news outlets may now focus on incidents’ specifics instead of common characteristics they might share, perhaps because audiences have an existing understanding of them. The shootings were framed in terms of gun control; national newspapers used this frame more often than did local newspapers. Both newspaper types tended to discuss gun control as directly related to the Aurora shootings, rather than as a societal or continuing need. Results offer further evidence that second-level agenda-setting and framing are distinct concepts.

KEYWORDS:

• attribute agenda-setting
• content analysis
• framing
• local
• mass shootings
• national
• newspaper

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Schildkraut and Muschert (2013) also identified “themes” in newspaper coverage of the Sandy Hook mass shootings, which perhaps other researchers would have identified as frames.

2. Results are compared to Chyi and McCombs's (2004) findings about news coverage of the Columbine shootings, Muschert and Carr's (2006) findings about multiple other shootings, Park, Holody, and Zhang's (2012) findings about the Virginia Tech shootings, and Schildkraut and Muschert's (2013) findings about the Sandy Hook shootings. These citations are not repeated in this section unless necessary, to avoid redundancy.