In July of this year, researchers used a mathematical contagion model, which is typically used to estimate the spread of diseases, to determine if media attention affects the recurrence of mass shootings. The findings were substantial, determining that 30% of mass killings and 22% of school shootings were inspired by previous events with a lot of media coverage. Lead author of the study, Sherry Towers claimed that when there was no media coverage of the mass killings there was no contagion but when there was a lot of media coverage, there was a lot of contagion. In Columbine, Dave Cullen explored the mass shootings leading up to the incident at Columbine High School in 1999 to show the pattern of contagion one mass shooting can have, writing, “In February 1997, a sixteen-year-old in remote Bethel, Alaska, brought a shotgun to high school and opened fire. He killed the principal and a student and injured two others. In October, another boy shot up his school, this time in Pearl, Mississippi. Two dead students, seven wounded. Two more sprees erupted in December, in remote locales: West Paducah, Kentucky and Stamps, Arkansas. Seven were dead by the end of the year, sixteen wounded. The following year was worse; ten dead, thirty-five wounded, in five separate incidents. Shooting season, they began to call it” (Cullen 23). Even though the first school shooting ever did not happen in 1997, the coverage of that school shooting escalated the timetable of other ones. The previous shooters “fame” made the prospect of having that attention appealing to others and encouraged them to take their anger out aggressively to be memorable. To control public distress, the CDC released date that showed a child’s chance of dying at school was one in a million. Despite the fact that there are nearly 70 million children in school in America and an increase in frequency of school shootings, the statistics provided by the CDC calmed everyone down and no one took notice of the effects of media coverage when it was necessary. Now, in 2015, we see the staggering evidence that mass media greatly effects the frequency of school shootings and are faced with a question that should’ve been addressed 17 years ago: how do we effectively and legally control the media’s access and output of mass shooting information?
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BooksAll the Light We Cannot See Archives
February 2016
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