A thesis submitted to the Faculty of The Episcopal School of Baton Rouge in partial fulfillment of the requirements for Distinction in Thesis in 2021.
Acknowledgements
I dedicate my thesis to all victims of mass shootings, but specifically the courageous victims of the Parkland high school shooting. These students survived a violent crime and immediately took to social media to organize a protest that mobilized millions around the globe, yet they are at the root of it all. They are proof that we do not have to sit idly and hopelessly watch these crimes; all of us can make a change.
I’d like to thank my family for their constant support through every step of the writing process. From researching to presenting my thesis, my family encouraged me and offered advice when I was stuck. Their willingness to listen to my daily research was an essential part of forming my ideas discussed in the paper.
This paper would not have been possible without the work and support that my readers and advisors invested in me. Mrs. Sutcliffe’s well-planned motivational talks balanced her equally well-planned deadlines and guidance that led me through the writing process. Ms. Kirschner and Mrs. Rome were fantastic readers that gave thoughtful input and suggestions to constantly improve my paper. Finally, Dr. Kuhn’s enthusiasm and passion as my advisor was my inspiration to dive deeper into my research and push myself to write a paper that I am proud of.
Abstract
Since 1965, the number of mass shootings in America have steadily increased. In an attempt to find an underlying cause for this pattern, this paper analyses mass shooting definitions, misconceptions, and connections to suicidal thoughts. This connection is evidence that a mass shooting contagion may be occuring similarly to the well-established suicide contagion. A review of news reports following sensationalized mass shootings from 1965 to 2018 shows evidence of a contagion. The paper argues for a complete and accurate portrayal of mass shooters in the news reports, along with a greater focus on the victims of these crimes to limit the contagion effect, while suggesting other forms of media, such as young adult novels, as a way to combat the misinformation surrounding these crimes. These changes could aid in limiting the frequency of mass shootings in America.
Introduction
Kristina Anderson was nineteen years old when she was shot three times during her French class at Virginia Tech in 2007. She was one of seventeen survivors of the mass shooting that killed thirty-two students and faculty at the university. But her grief did not end once she recovered. She recalls the pain that followed her for years, including how her brain “was numb for about two years. [She was] kind of fuzzy.” Even though her wounds healed, her struggle did not end. The hardest obstacle for Anderson was mentally accepting what happened- that she would “never go back to the way she was before the mass shooting” (Anderson).
Emily Haas was in her business relations class a few rooms away from Anderson when the teacher told her and her peers to hide under their desks. Moments later, two bullets grazed her head. “When the shooting was over,” Haas remembers, “the 911 operator told me the police couldn’t get into my room, and asked if I could open the door.” After doing so, the police had to help her and over a dozen of her classmates reach safety.
Colin Goddard was in the same business relations class at the time of the shooting. He was hiding under his desk when he dialed 911, the gunman entering while Goddard was speaking to the operator. The shooter re-entered the room multiple times, repeatedly turning down the row of desks that Goddard was in. The fourth and final bullet hit Goddard’s shoulder, knocking his phone out of his hand and towards Haas’s head. She then was able to follow the dispatcher’s instruction to open the door for the police (Pelletiere).
All three victims survived the shooting. The trauma drastically altered their lives, but each coped through a different method of advocacy. Anderson travels across the country giving safety protocol lessons to schools and workplaces, and Goddard volunteers at the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. Meanwhile, Haas shares a message that “if you think someone is suffering, try to get them help. We now know that the shooter was really struggling with mental illness, and I think this [and many other] tragedies could be prevented if he’d had the help he so obviously needed” (Pelletiere).
The number of mass shooting victims has increased over the last fifty years (Follman; Paradice 141). These three victims demonstrate the different reactions that one can have about mass shootings: two believe that shootings are preventable by reforming American standards of gun legislation or mental health, while one believes that mass shootings are uncontrollable instances that the public must adequately prepare for. The growth of research on this subject is leading to more support for all aspects of prevention of mass shootings, from mental health awareness to firearm licensing.
However, only in the past few decades have mass shootings become a hotly debated topic as to how and why they occur. After every mass shooting, the media and politicians seem to follow the same script by questioning the policy on gun ownership in America. Like Goddard and researcher Katsiyannis, some argue that legislative actions banning assault weapons or more extensive background checks will lower the frequency of mass shootings. However, this fails to explain what drives the mass shooters to commit their crimes. While it is a conversation that is worth having, gun policy is not the focus of my research. I chose to focus on the motives of mass shooters, which cannot be explained by gun legislation. Instead, I am looking for possible societal and psychological influences that drive their violence, especially how the media influences the public and may be prompting similar crimes due to overreporting and inaccurate portrayals of mass shootings- a phenomenon known as the contagion effect.
There are some limitations to the research due to a lack of a substantial data set to base my analysis on. This can be attributed to the small population of mass shooters in America and the topic only being prevalent in American discussions within the past few decades. Additionally, as many mass shooters do not survive their attacks, some information is based on interpretations of the shooter’s actions prior to the shooting (Lin et. al.). For example, the details of the shooter’s mental health prior to and at the time of the shooting is often limited to inferences and accounts from those that knew the shooter. A large portion of shooters never had any mental health examinations prior to their crime and often die by suicide following the shooting, so understanding any mental illnesses that they suffered from is based on stories from others (Hempel). Furthermore, I constrained my research to the past fifty-four years to maintain a comparable data set. Because there appeared to be a shift in the nature of mass shootings following Charles Whitman’s shooting at University of Texas at Austin in 1966, I did not include any mass shootings prior to this event in order to keep a data set that I could successfully draw relevant conclusions from.
After Whitman’s mass shooting, many more similar acts of violence began to occur, suggesting that the way this shooting was handled by the public is different from past responses. On the surface, Whitman seems like a typical mass shooter; he had a tumor that could have been causing severe aggression and affected his cognitive abilities, which matches the aggression and psychosis associated with mass shooters. However, he was the first mass shooter with cameras that could record him as he committed his crime. As this was the first mass shooting to occur following the advent of mass media, it is possible that the widespread and occasionally inaccurate coverage of Whitman’s crime contributed to the shift to the modern mass shooter. Whitman’s shooting may have been the basis for a cultural script, or the representations of cultural norms, that the media follows for all mass shooters.
Many factors may play a role in the formation of a mass shooter, including psychological disorders, isolation from a community, and the contagion effect, but the mass media response has often oversimplified their roles and seems to follow a cultural script. The news is also increasingly abundant, and there is not a set of guidelines that limits the contagion effect. A better understanding of the cultural script and the nature of reports on mass shooters could raise the standards for ethical journalism and lead to more preventative programs and systems to stop mass shootings from occurring at such a high rate. But to understand how mass shootings can be prevented, it is imperative that there is a clear and developed definition of these events.
Defining A Mass Shooting
A mass shooting can be paired with a range of definitions to describe both the event and the shooter. Since it has only been a few decades since we have begun to formally study mass shootings, there are a variety of terms and definitions that have yet to be standardized. This has made profiling and data collection much more difficult in the cases of mass shootings, and public awareness of the true nature of mass shootings is not widespread. For example, the Congressional Research Office defines a mass shooting as “an event in which four or more people, excluding the shooter, are killed” (Blum, Dinur, Jaworski 50). However, as this definition fails to account for the number of injuries due to the shooter, some researchers have rejected this definition. In his study, Paradice instead defines mass shootings as an event in which four or more injuries occur (141). Some studies follow the Congressional Research Office definition and others build their own definitions, so the lack of uniformity may lead to holes and variations in research based on these studies.
To better analyze the way that mass shootings are reported by the media, I propose a definition similar to Paradice, with at least four victims due to a single shooter in a public place in a short period of time. There are exceptions to this definition, such as the Columbine shooting that had two shooters and the Santa Barbara shooting that had a single shooter in multiple locations over a short period of time. These events are still included in the definition of a mass shooting, as they fit almost all of the other criteria for a mass shooter.
In addition to looking at the number of victims, a further distinction needs to be made. According to Holmes and Holmes in their typologies of mass killers, there are psychotic mass killers and disgruntled citizen mass killers. The psychotic mass killer is out of touch with reality and is motivated to kill by hopes of psychological gain, while the disgruntled citizen kills out of anger and hopelessness (Blum, Dinur, Jaworski, From Egoistical, 52). They are motivated by notoriety and revenge. Both types, however, are geographically stable and pick their victims at random. The victims are strangers with no connection to the killer except for a shared location (Follman). The shooter is not connected to gang violence, robbery, or other conventional motivations. While I am focusing on the disgruntled citizen mass killer, it is impossible to rule out temporary psychosis for many of the shooters that did not survive the shooting, so disregarding psychotic mass killers would not be a comprehensive analysis of the available data. For this paper, my definition of a mass shooting is a lone shooter in a public place that injures or kills three or more people in a single incident, not including himself with the motive unrelated to gang activity or robbery.
Despite the lack of a common definition and the gaps in research on the nature of mass shootings, researchers do seem to agree on the most common causes and triggers for a mass shooter which can aid in the understanding of how and why the shooting occured. While these strains and stressors do not excuse any behaviors, understanding them is essential for deciphering patterns and causes of mass shootings. Given the limited data sets regarding mass shooters and the even smaller number of mass shooters that survive the event, much of the research on mass shootings is based on previous suicide and homocide research. Using some theories and research on suicide, researchers are finding patterns and connections between those who take their lives and mass shooters.
Public mass shootings are almost certain to end with the shooter being killed by police, killing themselves, or being arrested and living the rest of their life in prison (Hempel 218; Taxman). The U.S. secret service conducted a study that found that 78% of school shooters from 1974 to 2000 had a history of suicidal thoughts or behavior (Vossekuil, et. al.). However, this statistic is likely higher because the data set was limited to shooters with suicidal behavior that could be found; many shooters do not survive their crimes and therefore it could not be proven that they were ever suicidal. As a majority of mass shooters experience suicidal thoughts prior to their crimes, suicide theories could provide insight into the actions and thoughts of mass shooters. Theories that identify the strains and stressors that are common in people with suicidal thoughts could also be used to identify those who may commit mass shootings.
Mental Illness and Strain
Agnew’s General strain Theory defines a “strain” as an event or condition that is disliked by an individual. According to Agnew, the most common strains are loss of something valuable, mistreatment by others, inability to achieve goals, marital problems, and unemployment. Durkheim further supports Agnew’s theory with three different types of strain: chronic strain that persists and intensifies over a long period of time, uncontrolled strain that is not mitigated by the presence of conventional and pro-social relationships, and acute strain, in which a loss perceived to be catastrophic serves as a catalyst or precipitant. Many mass shooters seem to have chronic strains such as major depression or delusional disorder that are intensified by acute and uncontrolled strains.
In his study in 1999 of thirty mass shootings that took place between 1949 and 1998, Anthony Hempel found that, of the 90% of mass murderers that had an identified strain, 50% of the strains were job related and 23% were experiencing problems with a spouse or girlfriend. He additionally identifies chronic strains such as depression or NPD. Of the thirty shooters in the study, twenty-eight had identifiable chronic strains. Similar to those that die by suicide, it appears that chronic and acute strains combine and may influence a mass shooter’s actions.
First introduced by Thomas Joiner in 2005 and expanded upon in 2010 by Van Orden et. al, the Interpersonal Theory of Suicide contends that many mass shooters do not plan to survive their attacks, which provides some insight into the psychology of mass shooters leading up to their respective shootings (Hollingsworth et. al.). According to the Theory, an individual is at the greatest risk for a near lethal or lethal suicide attempt during the co-occurance of three factors: perceived burdensomenss, thwarted belongingness, and acquired capability. An individual experiences their perceived burdensomeness when they perceive that they are ineffective in life and a burden on others. Thwarted belongingness is the feeling of social disconnection, regardless of one’s isolation or presence in a social group. Past painful experiences contribute to the acquired capability to harm oneself.
Suicidal ideation is found to increase in frequency when perceived burdensomeness increases. Hollingsworth, et. al. conducted a study on college students and concluded that perceived burdensomeness acts as a bridge between a person’s feelings of isolation from a group and suicidal thoughts. The college students in the study experienced greater social disconnections during the summer semester, when the college’s community is broken by the separation of students due to vacations, different class schedules, internships, and jobs. Additionally, the students participated in fewer clubs and gatherings compared to high school, which added to the lack of social connectedness. While one’s social connectedness is not directly associated with suicidal ideation, it can intensify perceived belongingness and thwarted belongingness, which is shown to affect suicidal ideation (Hollingsworth et. al.). It is important to note that students do not automatically gain a sense of belonging when they are part of a group. Those who were significantly involved in social groups could still experience the same feelings of isolation and disconnection that leads to suicidal ideation.
Isolation and disconnection from society are strong factors of the chronic strains that affect mass shooters. Although a single mental illness, such as anxiety or depression, does not connect mass shooters, loneliness and isolation is a prominent link in the various writings of mass shooters (Neumann). Based on this research, it could be possible that mass shooters, even if they take part in various social activities, still feel as though they do not belong, which could cause feelings of inadequacy and burdensomeness. Mental disorders including narcissistic personality disorder, depression, and schizophrenia may exacerbate these emotions and lead to thoughts of suicide or murder. Furthermore, individuals experiencing perceived burdensomeness and thwarted belongingness could associate themselves with the inaccurate portrayals of mass shooters in the news. While the personal impacts of mental illness explain one dimension of mass shooters, there is value in trying to build a profile. However, those profiles are not without problems.
The Difficulty with Profiling
Mass media profiling of mass shooters can be traced back to the first modern mass shooting. Whitman’s mass shooting in 1966 was the first mass shooting as we know today in which the victims were chosen at random and the number of victims was highlighted by newspaper headlines, radio talk shows, and the evening news channels. The number of victims was startling. Whitman killed his wife, mother, two friends, fourteen strangers, and injured another thirty-one. The disturbing black-and-white footage of Whitman in the tower on the university campus shooting with precision courtesy of sharpshooting training from his time in the Marine Corps was viewed by thousands of Americans across the country (Ponder). With the advent of national television networks, no longer was news isolated to any region. Instead, the gruesome details of the murders and Whitman’s actions traveled throughout the American public. It is possible that this shooting could be the event that sparked similar crimes over the next five decades.
Eighty-five percent of all mass murder events in United States history have occurred after 1966 (Paradice 141). In the forty-nine years following Whitman’s shooting, seventeen mass murders have occured. Furthermore, 90% of all injuries at educational institutions have occurred since 1966. More mass shootings have occurred at universities since Whitman’s university shooting (Paradice 141). Because Whitman chose a university for the location of his mass shooting, it is possible that this shooting was not only a turning point in the frequency of mass shootings but also the location.
Researchers attempted to create a more accurate profile of a mass shooter to predict when and where the next event would occur. According to Douglas et. al., the pioneers of criminal profiling in the 1980s, profiling is “a technique for identifying the major personality and behavioral characteristics of an individual based upon an analysis of the crimes he or she has committed” (Alison et. al. 115) However, without proper understanding of the behaviors of mass shooters, this was found to be much harder than expected. A profile’s main purpose to predict the time, location, and perpetrator of a future event is impossible given current research on mass shooters. While there are patterns in mass shooters’ behavior, they are too vague and there are too many variations to narrow these down to make a useful list of possible shooters.
Trends in data are not enough to build a substantial profile. As NPR behavioral science correspondent Shankar Vedantam explains, “a really effective profile is something that allows you to say here’s where the next shooter is going to come from, here’s where the next school is going to be targeted.” Predicting the next event is where the data are limited, preventing an effective profile from being created to understand the causes of mass shootings in America. This is partly due to the incredibly small data set of mass shooters, which prevents reliable statistical analyses. Despite these limitations, news reports seem to suggest that mass shooters are lone-wolf white men that are bullied and depressed, who commit a mass shooting as an act of revenge against those that bullied them. In reality, this informal profile is rarely accurate and is too wide to accurately catch a mass shooter before their crime.
For example, mental illness is a factor in 25% of mass shootings, excluding perpetrators that the motive could not be identified. While this figure may at first appear useful in profiling, it is important to note that 18.6% of all American adults were estimated to have a type of mental illness in 2017, so profiling by mental illness would not be particularly beneficial in preventing mass shootings (“Mental Health Information”).
There is also no single mental illness related to mass shooters, as they often have a variety of mental problems including paranoid schizophrenia, major depression, delusional disorder, and/or NPD (Nuemann). While profiling may seem like a useful tool in identifying possible perpetrators, there are thousands of people living with the same mental illnesses that do not commit any acts of violence. Additionally, some mass shooters do not show signs of having any mental illnesses. These shooters often experience intense feelings of isolation or anger, paired with acute strains prior to their shooting (Hempel 216). The motives of a mass shooter also differ depending on their mental state, which results in further challenges for creating a definitive profile. While psychotic mass shooters have more feelings of anger, non-psychotic shooters typically experience higher levels of depression (Hempel 218).
Another example would be the expectation that the shooters were quiet and had few friends. These characteristics exist in some mass shooters, but certainly not all. The Columbine shooters were loud and purposefully shouted inflammatory phrases in school; the Virginia Tech shooter answered in one-word phrases and rarely spoke in whispers (Bowley, Newman). Mass shooters have a variety of symptoms and traits leading up to their crime that cannot be pinned down to any specific disorder or action that precludes a mass shooting.
Notably, even well-established profiles for other types of crimes, such as homicide and rape, are usually used by law enforcement with a mixture of other methods (Laurence). It is rare to use a profile alone to catch a criminal; instead, profiles may be used in tandem with active threat assessment models or suspect prioritization. This multidisciplinary approach may be a more effective method than solely profiling individuals that the media attempts to do.
The Media: Oversimplifying Motives for Mass Shooting
This one-dimensional portrayal of mass shooters could be a result of the growth in media competition throughout the second half of the twentieth century. Even more so than in 1966, a constant stream of media has become the new norm for the American public; television, radio, movies, and print news are increasingly prevalent in our daily lives due to the advancements in technology within the past hundred years. Social media and the internet have been the newest developments in media that have greatly affected daily life, but have also blurred the ethical lines for journalists and reporters that must work with these contemporary forms of news. Due to the evolution in news reporting, the American public may be consuming more media that does not meet proper journalistic standards for reporting.
Television became widely available in American homes in the 1950s and 1960s. In 1964, the presence of television was taking over print newspapers (Horten 29). CNN launched 24-hour news in 1980, which propelled other large news networks such as ABC, CBS, and NBC to increase their news coverage (Sheposh). Advanced computer technology in the 1990s and 200s led to further integration of media and public life (Horten 32; Sheposh). News from across the country, and eventually the world, was consumable in a few hours. But the reality of the news could be overridden by cultural scripts and unethical practices in journalism.
Increased competition between news outlets led to increased coverage of an event and more articles written about the same story. At the same time, news stations are under more pressure to release news immediately following the event, even if all of the details are not yet available. These pressures, combined with an American media tendency to sensationalize stories, leads to inaccurate stories being released about mass shooters that may be harmful to the public. Not only can over-reporting lead to copycat mass shootings, similarly seen in homicide and suicide reporting , but inaccurate portrayals of the mass shooters that perpetuate a false idea of mass shooters, limiting the progress that can be made in researching and understanding how and why these crimes occur.
With the advent of Internet reporting, the number of daily reports have increased dramatically (Shearer). Everyone gained access to a platform to share information, no matter how inaccurate their reports on events may be. The same phenomena that occured with mass media may have happened at an even faster rate on the Internet. The uncontrolled reporting on mass shootings may contribute to the default to the cultural script of a mass shooter.
Cultural scripts are the lens through which we view the world and daily events; they define the way we respond and interact with those around us. Traditions and cultural norms dictate cultural scripts, which in turn affect social interactions. An example of this is how, in some cultures, holding hands is permissible on the first date, while in other cultures this is reserved for serious relationships only (Stingl; Mazzetti 190). But not all cultural scripts are merely a matter of symbolic actions. Some are responses, reactions, and views that could be incongruous with the truth. The truth can be lost due to the overwhelming media portrayals of the same cultural script rather than the actual narrative of the event. Using the cultural script as a “shortcut” results in a collective memory that may overlook important information. For example, with mass shooting, the truth of the shooter’s personality and mental state before the shooting is dramatized to fit the cultural script, failing to include the many variations in their motives and backgrounds.
While academics and criminologists argue that a mass shooter profile is not yet a useful method for catching mass shooters or preventing their crimes, the media seems to have created a specific type of person that is supposed to be a mass shooter that should be feared. This cultural script is not only inaccurate, but may cause the spread of misinformation and unnecessary fear to the public. Despite the range in the types of people that have been mass shooters, the mass media often portrays a single personality: someone that is vengeful, bullied, and quiet. According to researchers and teachers Ash and Saunders, the presumed connection between bullying and school shootings is central to the cultural script about school shooters.
In the years following the Columbine school shooting in 1999, articles from national news sources asserted that the overwhelming problem of bullying in high schools was the reason for the shooting. In 2004, James Alan Fox wrote an article in USA Today in which he argued that large schools must take a “more sensitive approach to one of the common threads underlying most school shootings- bullying.” Although bullying affects many mass shooters, especially school shooters, this approach ignores the many other factors that play a larger role. The media portrays these bullied individuals as committing mass shootings as a way to seek revenge on their injustices and give voice to those left out of the mainstream. This story, likely published because it matches the cultural script of a mass shooter, does not fit with the motives of mass shooters in reality. Rarely are other strains and stressors mentioned in the news stories, such as trauma or mental illness (Ash and Saunders).
In the aftermath of a 2012 school shooting in Ohio, newspaper outlets initially portrayed the shooter as a “loner” that was another in “the latest in a string of school shootings committed by bullied students” (“Could Ohio”; “Ohio’s Horrific”; “T.J. Lane”). The conclusion that the shooter was a victim seeking revenge against his bullies collapsed quickly as other students were quoted saying that they never saw him being bullied. In fact, many described him in a more positive light, including descriptions that he had been “quiet,” but “the last person [the student] would think to do something like this” (Caniglia). Later news headlines emphasized the misconception that this shooter was bullied (“Prosecutor: Ohio”; Ng and Lowe; Cloud).
However, the initial wave of news reports contributed to the incorrect profile of the mass shooter, preventing progress from being made on larger issues that are common with these types of shootings. The serial position effect, composed of two effects that play a role in memory and retention, best demonstrates how the media’s initial reports affect the public perception of mass shooters. The first element of this effect is known as the primacy effect, which states that the first information given in a set is recalled better than the middle of the set (Birkett). Applied to media coverage, this would explain why mass shooters are portrayed inaccurately based on the initial reports instead of following reports that provide more accurate information.
Meanwhile, the second aspect of the serial position effect, known as the recency effect, states that information at the end of a sequence is also easily remembered because they are a better representation of the present. This suggests that news sources could retract their initial statements about mass shooters based on the cultural script and it would leave a lasting impression on the readers (Birkett). But national news coverage fizzles out and rarely corrects its initial statements about mass shooters, leaving the public with the primary information, which is the least accurate, as their views of mass shooters. Furthermore, in the event that the news corrects their response, it is lost in a sea of smaller headlines and bigger news stories. This leaves many Americans with an oversimplified view of mass shooters, limiting the progress that could be made on recognizing possible mass shooters and shootings before they occur.
While non-psychotic mass shooters are identified as those who are bullied, psychotic mass shooters appear to be identified solely by their mental illnesses and no other problems in their lives are brought to the attention of the media consumer. Like the oversimplification that all school shooters must have been bullied, mass shooters are thought to have psychological disorders with no other answers being sought after. News titles such as “Connecticut School Massacre: Suspect Adam Lanza Had ‘Personality Disorder’” demonstrate this problem, especially as the article fails to elaborate Lanza’s problems beyond a personality disorder that may explain the motive behind his crime. Similarly, a mass shooter in California was initially described as having autism by CNN (Duke). When this claim proved to be false, the article was edited and the killer’s motive was switched from mental illness to resentment towards his circumstances, especially with his family and money problems. Although the California shooter’s narrative was corrected, the initial story was enough to perpetuate the idea that these shooters act purely based on an uncontrollable mental disorder. For example, following the Isla Vista shooting, CNN initially stated that Rodger was autistic, which, according to the article, could not be reputably linked to the shootings. However, Rodger was never diagnosed with autism, and CNN’s failure to include any other details about Rodger’s mental state beyond this claim was enough to make a connection between the shooter’s nonexistent autism and his shooting. The article, which focused on Rodger’s motives for his shooting, continued to reinforce the cultural script and false connections between mental disorder and violence. While the mistake was soon corrected by Rodger’s family and other news sources, reality was overshadowed by the incorrect cultural script that was created by the media immediately following the shooting.
It is noteworthy that, five years after Columbine, journalist David Brooks wrote an op-ed in The New York Times that combated the cultural script that bullying was the primary reason for that mass shooting. Brooks wrote that, instead of being bullied, Harris was “disgusted by the inferior breed of humanity that he saw around him.” Many articles about the Columbine shooters that were written after the initial period following the shooting have a similar narrative. In 2019, The Washington Post ran an article debunking the bullying myth and other assumptions that news sources, including themselves, had made twenty years earlier. This suggests that our initial assumptions are more based on cultural scripts, and it can take years for the truth to be recovered in the public perception of mass shooters.
The dominant cultural script portrays mass shooters as angry and resentful. However, in psychotic mass shooters, these emotions are coupled with immense paranoia, while in non-psychotic mass shooters anger is coupled with oppressive loneliness and hopelessness. Themes of helplessness are prevalent in the writings, including manuscripts and text messages, of mass shooters. These texts give immense insight into the ways that the shooters view the world around them, and, most commonly, the isolation from any community that they experience, either perceived or legitimate (Neumann). Mass shooters can have a variety of mental illnesses or intense emotions that lead to acts of violence. By perpetuating one-dimensional portrayals of mass shooters, the media prevents substantial progress in the American understanding of mass shooters and potentially prevents more mass shootings by perpetuates the contagion effect.
The Media and the Contagion Effect
In addition to taking a reductionist approach to understanding mass shooters, the media may actually be guilty of inspiring some to commit mass shootings. Not only does the media simplify the motives and characteristics of mass shooters, but it also fails to follow ethical guidelines that could limit a contagion effect that is similar to the same effect that has already been studied in both suicide and homicide.
The increase in globalization and technology has been shown in studies to have a negative effect on the frequency of suicide and homicides. The “contagion effect” is “a process by which exposure to the suicide or suicidal behavior of one or more persons influences other to commit or attempt suicide” and has been studied for over four decades (O’Carroll and Potter 13). As it is proven to apply to suicide and homicide, it is possible that the contagion effect can impact mass shooters as well. As mass media took shape in America, it affected the amount of attention given to events such as mass shootings. This was first seen in the UT Austin shooting by Charles Whitman, which was videoed and photographed for newspapers across the country.
In 1989, a national workshop endorsed by the CDC outlined a list of recommendations to minimize the effects of suicide contagion in news media reports. These guidelines recognize the impact of simplistic explanations for suicide by specifying that “suicide is never the result of a single factor or event, but rather results from a complex interaction of many factors and usually involves a history of psychosocial problems” (O’Carroll and Potter 15). The same workshop also introduced suggestions to journalists discouraging sensationalization, graphic descriptions of the act, and excessive reporting on suicides.
Unfortunately, the instructions endorsed by the CDC have not been followed in the years following its release. In 2014, following the death of Robin Williams, hundreds of articles reported on the celebrity’s suicide. In their study of suicide and the contagion effect, Carmichael and Whitley note that one in four articles were found to describe the suicide manner in a highly-descriptive manner, which directly contradicts the recommendations to limit the contagion effect. Furthermore, reports sensationalized Williams’ suicide without acknowledging the complexity of Williams’ situation. In an article immediately following his death, The New York Times failed to incorporate the nuances of suicide, merely concluding that Williams suffered from severe depression; the report describes him as a “chubby and lonesome” child and a drug abuser as an adult (Itzkoff). The article additionally did not provide any commentary or resources for suicide prevention.
Although journalism guidelines exist and are not always heeded in the US, other countries have had better success in limiting the suicide contagion effect. Canada, for example, has similar guidelines to the United States national workshop, which Carmichael and Whitley use to compare five countries in their ability to minimize suicide contagion by following these rules. While few articles meet all of the criteria, media outlets in the United States were consistently found to describe suicide in more detail than the UK, Ireland, Pakistan, and Canada. While it is beyond the scope of this paper, further research should be done to understand how and why other countries have had more success in limiting sensational and excessive news reports.
Reports on mass shootings do not any guidelines or rules like suicide does. While the Society for Professional Ethics published a widely adopted code of ethics that includes points such as “avoid pandering to lurid curiosity” and “balance the public’s need for information against potential harm or discomfort,” with suicide as a subtopic under the latter point, no mention of mass shootings exist in the code (SPJ). Without guidelines to limit unsafe journalism methods, the contagion effect may be increasing the frequency of mass shootings following an initial event.
The lack of ethical practices when reporting on especially sensitive shootings, where the number of victims drives the media coverage, may be influencing audiences and sparking the contagion. The mass media may be unknowingly contributing to a contagion effect when a mass shooting has many victims. According to Towers, there is no significant evidence of contagion in mass shootings in which fewer than three people were killed. This suggests that larger mass shootings are more subject to the contagion effect due to more media coverage of them (Towers). It is possible that the trend toward covering shootings with more victims did not occur until after the Columbine shooting in 1999. Large shootings, such as Columbine, and more shocking murders lead to increased news coverage, as demonstrated by Charles Whitman’s shooting in 1966 that was filmed, photographed, and broadcasted across the country. Today, the black and white videos of his victims and crimes are still accessible on Youtube (Ponder). Along with this graphic media coverage, modern online coverage has been shown to correlate with decreased amount of time between shootings (Lin). It is possible that this media coverage encourages individuals that desire fame and attention to commit a mass shooting, but there is an even larger population of vulnerable individuals that do not want this attention. Instead, they consume information from the news that gives them a false view of mass shooters and, in response, could commit a mass shooting.
The failure to follow ethical guidelines may allow vulnerable individuals to relate to an inaccurate portrayal of the mass shooter, which encourages them to commit similar acts. Individuals that suffer from a loss of social ties, acute stressors, and thwarted belongingness are all associated with vulnerability to suicidal thoughts (Blum; Hollingsworth et. al). Most mass shooters do not plan to survive their attacks and are portrayed by the media as being alone and resentful, so the people experiencing similar thoughts of suicide or resentment are susceptible to the contagion effect in the news. While this portrait of an angry and antisocial perpetrator is not always accurate, as many had friends and appeared “normal” to their peers, this perception by the news could be hindering effective measures that may prevent shooters from committing their crimes.
Analyzing Media for Evidence of Inaccurate or Incomplete Portrayals
To best exhibit any prevalent cultural scripts or effects of a contagion in mass shootings in the media, I will be analyzing popular media sources to examine possible connections to a contagion effect. While the breadth and variety in news sources is limited due to the small number of sources that I am analyzing, this analysis will act more as a short exploration into the journalism ethics surrounding mass shootings. Because I am choosing nationally read news sources with varying styles of reporting, the exploration will still show some variety and represent many parts of American journalism ethics.
There are numerous factors that play a role in the contagion, including front-page location, descriptions of the methods used by the offender, and headlines containing language describing the actions (Gould, et. al; O’Carroll and Potter; Towers; Carmichael and Whitley). Examples of these oversimplified headlines include “…Angry Men Intent on Revenge Fit Profile” and “James Holmes Bought Rifle After Failing Oral Exam at University of Colorado” (Hamilton; Harris). These headlines from ABC News and The Washington Post immediately followed the mass shootings. Both news sources additionally strip the complicated situation down to a single factor driving their respective mass shootings; the former settles upon the shooter acting out of revenge while the latter suggests that the shooter’s entire motive was a failed exam.
Furthermore, much like reports on celebrity suicides, mass shootings are subject to glorification. Gruesome news headlines such as “…Guns, Bombs and Bodies Strewn Through Library” from The Chicago Tribune and “…Cruz Confessed to Police That He Began Shooting Students ‘in the Hallways’” in The New York Times draw in readers and immortalize the shooters’ actions through unnecessary and grim details (Graham, Haynes; Turkewitz). Without the same code of ethics that suicide and homicide reports are frequently held to, news of mass shootings are riddled with sensational headlines and oversimplified conclusions about the shooters.
Other Forms of Media: Helpful or Hindrance?
Despite the rampant sensationalism in news articles on mass shooters and the apparent lack of guidelines for journalism on these events, there appears to be a recent trend towards acknowledging the fallacies of common views of mass shooters. On the day of the massacre, The Washington Post published a news article by journalist Tom Kenworthy on the Columbine shooting. In a rush to report more quickly than competing news sources, the article was riddled with inaccuracies about the two killers. It was reported that the shooters were part of the Trench Coat mafia, targeted athletes, and killed 25 students. Not only are all of these details false, but the article additionally includes unnecessarily graphic and detailed narratives from other students that witnessed the shooting.
Unfortunately, the Columbine shooters hoped to become famous through their actions, even though they did not expect to survive the mass shooting. Recordings from the months leading up to the shooting reveal how they expected movies to be made about their crime, and how they will go down in history for the magnitude of the shooting. As the killers had hoped, they achieved infamy in their violence that would haunt the American public for years to come.
However, exactly twenty years later, Gillian Brockell, another journalist from The Washington Post, published an article that pointed out the false ideas that many continue to have about the school shooters at Columbine. The article uses Kenworthy’s article and reports from other national news sources such as The Los Angeles Times to demonstrate the widespread beliefs that were based in the cultural script rather than reality. Brockell interviews reputable psychologist Peter Langman, who has multiple books consisting of his extensive research on school shootings. She proves three major fallacies about the shooters, including the idea that they were part of the Trench Coat Mafia and were bullied by their peers (Brockell).
With this acknowledgement in their errors, The Washington Post demonstrates the possibility of news sources correcting their initial statements about mass shooters that are based in an incomplete cultural script. This would be the first step in creating a new public idea of mass shooters that is more conducive to finding the reasons behind the frequency of mass shootings in America. Similar articles have been released in the years following other mass shootings. This progress is substantial, but its effectiveness is limited by the aforementioned recency effect. A crucial issue is that the initial news of the mass shooters creates a false profile that is ingrained in the American public, making it difficult to go back years later and change that impact.
Sensationalism remains an issue, despite the progress being made towards a better understanding of mass shooters. In Brockell’s article refuting past fallacies, video footage is inserted in the middle of her writing that shows moments from the shooting. The ability to record and post videos becomes easier with each generation, and footage of many mass shootings are available online and often featured in national news articles and television. While videos and pictures frequently accompany any news story, showing the crimes may have more negative effects. They may intensify the contagion effect and could be detrimental to the public by encouraging copycat events.
With the internet, the circulation of pictures and videos of mass shootings is easier and accessible to anyone. This is especially dangerous for the glorification and sensationalization of these crimes. However, the internet may offer more positive effects than expected. Anyone has the ability to build a platform through social media and spread their message. This gives mass shooting victims a voice to share their experiences and advocate for changes. While mass media outlets focus on the shooter, social media can boost the stories of the victims and combat the contagion.
Charlotte Alter wrote an article for TIME about the victims of the Parkland high school shooting in 2018. The same victims were on the cover of TIME magazine for their influence and advocacy for gun control. As Alter describes, these students organized the March for Our Lives and have massive internet presences on social media such as Instagram and Twitter. The March for Our Lives demonstration consisted of over a million Americans protesting gun control legislation, along with over 800 events spanning all fifty states and six continents, making it one of the largest protests in American history (Alter). Without social media, these demonstrations would not have been possible and these high school students never would have an opportunity to share their experience in a mass shooting, which are far more complex than the single narrative created by mass media outlets.
While news sources often fall victim to oversimplified narratives and eye-catching accounts that hinder awareness of the dangers of real mass shooters, other forms of media, such as fictional novels, may offer better practices that fill in some of the gaps caused by the cultural script. They offer narratives of shooters that cannot be adequately described in a short newspaper article, allowing nuances and grey areas to shine through longer descriptions and building conflicts.
Since Columbine, a niche of school shooting novels is growing in young adult fiction. In their analysis of twelve young adult novels about school shooters, Gwynne Ash and Jane Saunders, two professors that specialize in young adult literature, found that novels can both challenge and reflect aspects of the cultural script of mass shooters. In these novels, all published from 2000 to 2016, most of the physical aspects of the mass shooter are kept constant- their age, race, and gender reflect the cultural script of a young, white, male mass shooter. In half of the novels analysed, the main characters were bullied prior to committing the mass shooting, but bullying was rarely implied to be the main stressor for the shooters. In spite of these surface features, young adult fiction extended beyond the cultural script to include a range of stressors: grief and mental illness affected some while psychopathy and trauma in others acted as strains in the characters of the novels (Ash and Saunders).
Another feature of the young adult novels that is rarely mentioned in newspapers is the recruitment and grooming of vulnerable individuals in mass shooters. While this aspect of mass shootings is most common in suicide bombers and other politically-fueled attacks, it is an aspect also found especially in school shooters that is rarely discussed in the news (Ash and Saunders).
Understanding mass shooters through fictional events allows authors to present challenges to the cultural script and the profile of mass shooters while encouraging the readers to self-analyze for the emotions that the characters are experiencing and provide possible ways to avoid violence. With an increased awareness of the complexities of mass shootings, public support may increase for more effective programs that could address common strains that mass shooters experience, such as trauma and mental illness, before they are driven to commit crimes.
Complicating the cultural script may be exactly what young adult readers are looking for when they pick up a novel on a mass shooter. In an interview published by Education Week, a high school student said that she reads novels such as Give a Boy a Gun by Todd Strasser, Hate List by Jennifer Brown, and This Is Where it Ends by Marieke Nijkamp to aid her uncertainty surrounding mass shootings. In fact, This is Where it Ends was a New York Times best-seller for 72 weeks, as millions across the country attempted to get closer to the experience of a mass shooting in a safe space to both gain a greater understanding and cope with the fear of these events (Walsh).
While the growing niche could be beneficial to students and adults alike in understanding mass shooters, Ash and Saunders recognize that progress is limited without critical discussion of the novels’ themes. The example of pop music can be used to understand this dilemma. ‘I Don’t Like Mondays’ by the Boomtown Rats was at the top of the charts in the UK for weeks in 1980, and was frequently played on American radio stations (Official Charts; The Boomtown Rats). What many listeners did not realize, however, is that the iconic chorus, which doubles as the song’s name, is a direct quote from sixteen year old Brenda Spencer after she was caught for perpetrating the 1979 Cleveland Elementary School Shooting.
Similarly, Foster the People’s “Pumped Up Kicks” is an upbeat tune that narrates a fictional school shooter and their crime. The songwriter, Mark Foster, hoped to use the song as a platform to discuss school shootings and educate the public about mass shooters. However, as the lyrics went unnoticed by thousands that were distracted by the catchy tune, those that noticed were enraged by Foster’s lyrics, suggesting that he was glorifying gun violence. Whether Foster’s intentions were honest, the song did not start a conversation about school shooters or successfully challenge the cultural script (“Foster the People”; Foster).
Challenging any cultural script takes a lot of time and work to make significant changes in the way that we view our world. Considering how ingrained the cultural script for a mass shooter is ingrained in the collective minds of most Americans, decades may pass before the script matches the complex reality surrounding mass shootings. However, we do not have to wait for a better script to change the way that we discuss mass shootings in the media. When we focus on the victim and put their narrative as the main focus, giving the shooter as little attention as possible, we reframe the way we talk about mass shootings. Just like the students of Stoneman Douglas High School, who used the platforms available to them to spread messages following the Parkland shooting, we can use the platforms available to us to support safer messages about mass shootings in our news articles and spark deeper discussions about these events that don’t just start and end at the cultural script.
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