Communication Research Project Assignment
Running head:The Influence of Violent News in the United States 1
Communication Research Project Assignment
Vanessa L. Cruz
San Jose State University
The Influence of Violent News in the United States 2
Abstract
News content has greatly influenced public opinion, popular culture, and the representation of
our society. Today, more than ever, with the help of current technology and instant news at our
fingertips, society can easily become influenced by these messages received. In particular, the
rise of news content focused on gun violence is a recurring news story today that holds many
effects to the viewing audience. Most people get their information about violent crime from the
news; however, the media is distorting the reality of mass shootings by the way the stories are
presented to the public. Gun violence in news media is an issue that I would like to explore
because I am concerned that this topic and how it is presented in the news is influencing violent
behaviors within our society. I plan to focus on gun violence in television news and how it has
influenced a rise of violent behaviors in more recent years. This phenomenon of reporting on
mass shootings has become a global issue within the United States.Whether we are mindful of it
or not, viewing gun violence through news media has affected us all in some way by creating
more aggressive behaviors and implying that incidents like this are our social reality. The media
is responsible for creating important content on issues that society relies on in order to
understand their social responsibilities to our community. If the media fails to report all aspects
of a story, people will ultimately be effected.
To help me explore the ways in which the media has placed a heavy concentration on violent
content in news media, I hope to explore the use of Framework and how the Cultivation Theory
is applied through media outlets. I will try to make sense of the media’s agenda and the messages
they are trying to establish with increasing violent news content and continuous focus on the
shooters. I also hope to explore the process of how we got to the point in the United States,
where violent news content is a form of normalcy. By taking a look at these issues through the
The Influence of Violent News in the United States 3
lens of The Cultivation Theory, I hope to understand the effects of viewing this violent content
and how it has shaped the society we are currently living in. Violent acts in news content has
seemed to become a love affair for viewers in the United States, and the media is partially
responsible for this fad. I will break down the process of how the media became a powerful and
influential means of violent consumption.
Introduction
What is Violence
There are many interpretations of what defines violence. Although violence is typically known to
be associated with physical actions, Millwood(2007) simply advocates that there is not enough
studies conducted on how people come to define something as violent. Therefore it is
challenging to grasp a clear definition of what violence is since everyone has their own version
of what it entails. In Millwood’s own group study conducted of both adults and children, she
attempts to understand what is seen as screen violence in the viewers own perspectives. Results
of her group study varied based on the viewers own feelings of anxiety and aggression. Millard
suggests that the viewers own feelings of anxiety and aggression stem from continuously
viewing most of their real life violence through violence perceived in the media. Although not all
violent content received is accurate of most viewers daily realities, the effects of viewing
violence in the news inflicts aggression and antisocial behaviors. Viewers will be both
subconsciously and consciously exposed to violent content through the media whether society
has a definite definition of what it entails or not.
News Media
News media is a form of mass media that creates and delivers news content through print,
broadcasted news, and the internet. The media has been somewhat consistent in how it has been
The Influence of Violent News in the United States 4
covering mass shootings in the United States over the last several years. Once an unfortunate
event occurs all other news drops and the media will go around the clock with the story,
primarily focusing on the shooter. One of the first things we typically find out is a background
history of the shooter. News outlets will bombard us with the shooters full name, his upbringing
and if there were any previous signs of distress. Journalist, Robin Lloyd(2018) states that many
mass shooters have admitted they are seeking fame and have attempted to maximize their
number of fatalities to achieve that fame. By providing a focus of who the perpetrator is, the
media is reinforcing bad behavior, not to mention motivating copycat offenders who see this as
another way to achieve the attention they are seeking. Lloyd also states that there are several
news anchors who refuse to state these offenders full name while reporting on the issue. My
concern is if news reporters feel strongly about not focusing on the shooter or naming them, then
why do media gatekeepers feel it is necessary to provide viewers details of the shooters life when
they have taken the lives of many innocent ones? Why is it constantly the first thing that is
reported in news media after a mass shooting? Is it necessary to know who these perpetrators
are? Focusing on who the shooter is, rather than the crime that was committed or the victims of
those crimes is distorting the reality of mass shootings.
Framework & Cultivation Theory
In an attempt to understand why the media tends to focus coverage on the offender and less on
the victims, I needed to understand how the media frames their content. Based on the research of
(McCombs, M. and Shaw,D., 2017), media framing is referred to the way the media depicts
certain perspectives from which a story is told. Media gatekeepers use framing as a way to focus
attention on certain events and can be used as a way of telling society what to think about.
Viewers are influenced by the media on the basis of what is being told to them about their social
The Influence of Violent News in the United States 5
reality. Although the news is not an exact representation of most realities, it presents various
views of a small reality through a selective process.
Cultivation Theory implies the same shaping of our society but solely focuses on television
effects. It is important to understand the effects of viewing violent content and how it has shaped
the society we are currently living in. Cultivation theorists (Gerbner et al., 2017) suggest that
television can have long-term effects that are indirect but can be significant. According to
Gerbner, some of these effects can lead to more aggressive behaviors which I will discuss in
further details to come. Gebner also suggest that massive television exposure by viewers subtly
shapes the perception of social reality for individuals and for our culture as a whole. It is
important that members of society become aware of media framing and the understanding of
cultivation theory, along with how they are applied in news, so that we can all become critical
viewers of it’s content and to shape our own reality.
Literature Review
Effects of Violent Content
Watching news media creates heavy influence on the viewers of what their everyday world is
like. The media is responsible for shaping the viewers conceptions of social reality and
ultimately for our culture as well. According to (Grizzard et al., 2017) research has presented the
effects of viewing graphically violent content in news media can lead to aggression and
antisocial outcomes. In Grizzard’s experimental study in which he examined news footage from
major American broadcast networks, he focused on violent frames used in news media.
Broadcast networks used media frames and still images of violent acts which froze the image but
continued to use sound bites of what took place at the crime. The results from viewing violent
images in the news creates a visual stimuli which Grizzard suggest can have a negative effect
The Influence of Violent News in the United States 6
and consequences toward the perpetrator. Ultimately the study suggest that viewing graphic
violence in news media can lead to indirect build up of aggression and anxiety in viewers over
time.
Scholar Nicole Martins(2018) conducted an experimental test, in which the goal was to test the
link between media violence exposure and its effects. Results showed that viewing violent media
news stories lead to aggressive behavior immediately after exposure. In the long-run, the study
suggests that exposure to violent news in childhood is associated with aggression in adulthood.
The media has been fascinated with focus on violent news coverage in the last several years
feeding society their daily dose of aggression. However, according to Bartsch (2016), these
messages our society receives does not reflect their daily realities. As a result of the media’s
heavy concentration on violent content, our society has become fascinated with aggressive
behaviors and fantasies leaving the viewers wanting more. In an interview with 39 participants
from different backgrounds regarding how viewers use and make sense of violent content, many
interviewees expressed that they were left deeply disturbed and overwhelmed after viewing
violent content. Some interviewees also discussed and reflected their own violent impulses and
thoughts while viewing violent news content. Although the violent content was referred to as
traumatizing, interviewers also explained that these experiences viewed in the news were also a
form of extreme physiological arousal.
As a result of heavy violent news content in more recent years, society has become numb and
desensitized to these aggressive behaviors. The public has become fascinated with this type of
violence and evil characters since the media has focused on them. Bartsch’s findings suggest that
viewers are learning terror from violent media content which is not an exact representation of
The Influence of Violent News in the United States 7
their everyday lives. It is important that society become critical of the news content in order to
recognize and live our own practical realities.
Framework in News Media
The media has become a powerful source in constructing our culture by using particular news
angles. The pattern of media framing immediately following a mass shooting incident suggest
that the media focuses on the shooter rather than the victims, survivors, or the community
affected. Ruth DeFoster(2017) mentions that news frames tend to highlight “problem
definitions” such as mental health, gun control, drug use, and lack of school security as the
reasoning for these crimes. Media framing is used as a way to promote a particular problem,
while outlining another problem. We see this happen quite often in news coverage of mass
shootings where the media focuses on the personal problems of the shooter. News media places
blame on everything, but rarely the shooter themselves.
The more fatalities, use of multiple weapons, age of perpetrator, and location are all factors in
how the media considers coverage of mass shootings. Robin Lloyd(2018) points out that in a
recent study of mass media coverage in printed news media, 72 percent of mass shooting during
a 50 year period were covered by The Times. During this span of time the mass shooting at
Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida received the most coverage not because it
had the most casualties, but mainly because it involved a younger shooter and took place at a
school where there are many innocent bystanders. Highlighting these stories of casualties in such
rural areas of a community can create fear, anxiety and can influence the audience to think of
their society as a fearful place.
If media gatekeepers continue to chose to present narrow perspectives and sensational coverage
of the shooter, we could provoke copycats because we keep encouraging them. As DeFoster
The Influence of Violent News in the United States 8
presents, copycat incidents usually occur within two weeks of a highlighted mass shooting
incident covered in the news. Everytime an incident occurs, the shooter then becomes the topic
of the week. The media focuses on the shooter in search of understanding by taking a closer look
about them personally rather than covering the other issues at hand. Several news angles could
be taken into consideration and covered, such as gun control, school safety, the victims and the
survivors instead of encouraging other conclusions. Society needs to hear all perspectives on
news coverage relating to these tragic news stories.
Cultivation Theory in News Media
Cultivation Theory was developed by George Gerbner in which he examined the long-term
effects of Television. With the popularity of online media and having access to news through
electronic devices, the theory still applies both to online and television media. In a study
conducted by Hey Yeung Lau(2015) using survey questionnaires to 258 undergraduate students
in an attempt to understand the effects of television and online media. The results indicated that
viewing of the two was an important factor in the interviewees concept of social reality, in
addition to their own behavioral intentions. Lau’s study introduces the phrase, “Mean World
Syndrome,”which suggest an idea that the world is worse than it actually is. Viewers who fall
under this phrase are viewed as being exposed to more violent content through heavy viewership.
Lastly, Lau’s study found that viewers with more vivid memories of the violent content, the
more likely they were disconnected with the real world.
Conclusion
According to Muschert(2006), public opinion rarely remains focused on one issue for too long.
Issues within the media usually gain public attention, then fade away until the next topic of
interest captures the public's attention. With new technologies and instant news at our fingertips,
The Influence of Violent News in the United States 9
our societies attention spans are getting shorter and shorter. Viewers are becoming more
distracted by what the media thinks we need to know, in addition to news outlets competing
more than ever for their viewers attention. In the process of trying to gain viewers, media
gatekeepers seem to focus on the negative issues at hand. By framing mass shootings a societal
problem and placing blame on mental health, lack of school security or gun control we are
dismissing the shooter as the suspect and only encouraging it to happen again.
If the media is going to continue covering news stories on mass shootings, we need to do so with
caution and also hear stories from all angles. It is the public's right to have access to this
coverage, but maybe we can have more ethical ways of reporting on it. One recent change
occurred during the coverage of the Parkland shooting where the news coverage focused more on
the victims and less on the offender. Social groups, such as “Don’t Name Them” and “No
Notoriety” have begun lobbying to not name these shooters. Refusing to name the shooters in
news media may help deny the attention these perpetrators are seeking and deter from future
attacks.
Originally mass shootings appeared in the news media as an issue of concern to the communities
in which they occured. Today, the media is distorting these incidents by framing the perpetrators,
by humanizing them and in the process offending the survivors. Although unethical, it is not
clear why the media continues to focus on coverage of the shooters. America has become
fascinated with violence and this may be the media’s way of gaining their audiences attention.
We have gone astray from covering these events as a community concern to glorified coverage
of the shooter. News reportage has shown no empathy for the victim. We rarely hear their names
and that is due to America’s fascination of evil perpetrators involved in addition to instant news
at our fingertips. Coverage of mass shooting will be the highlighted story of the news round the
The Influence of Violent News in the United States 10
clock and can be found highlighting the shooter on multiple channels throughout the day. Often,
members of society remembers names of murders and not the victims since we do not
acknowledge them in news media. As a viewers we need to be mindful of how stories are
gathered and told through the lens of the media in order to have a clear and critical view of the
issue at hand.
References
Bartsch, A., Mares, M., Scherr, S., Klob, A., Keppeler, J., & Posthumus, L. (2016). More Than Shoot-Em-Up and Torture Porn: Reflective Appropriation and Meaning-Making of
Violent Content. Journal of Communication, 66(5), 741-765. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcom.12248
DeFoster, R., & Swalve, N. (2018). Guns, Culture or Mental Health? Framing Mass Shootings as
a Public Health Crisis. Health Communication, 33(10), 1211-1222.
Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1080/10410236.2017.1350907
The Influence of Violent News in the United States 11
Grizzard, M., Huang, J., Weiss, J. K., Novotny, E. R., Fitzgerald, K. S., Ahn, C.,Chu, H. (2017).
Graphic Violence as Moral Motivator: The Effects of Graphically Violent Content in
News. Mass Communication & Society, 20(6), 763-783.
https://doi.org/10.1080/15205436.2017.1339804
Lau, H.Y.(2015). Cultivation Effects of Television Broadcasting and Online Media. Department
of Journalism and Communication. 2(3),13-16.
Lloyd, R. (2018). Media Coverage of Mass Shootings: Is it Part of the Problem?
https://undark.org/2018/03/08/media-coverage-of-mass-shootings-misses-the-mark-for-d
ecades.com
Martins, N., Weaver, A. J., & Lynch, T. (2018). What the Public “Knows” About Media Effects
Research: The Influence of News Frames on Perceived Credibility and Belief Change.
Journal of Communication, 68(1), 98-119. https://doi.org/10.1093/joc/jqx004
Milwood, A.(2007). The Meaning and Definition of Violence. International Journal of Media
and Cultural Politics, 3(3), 289-305.
Muschert, G.W., & Carr, D. (2006). Media Salience and Frame Changing across Events:
Coverage of Nine School Shootings, 1997-2001. Journal & Mass Communication Quarterly, 83(4), 747-766.
http://libaccess.sjlibrary.org/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true
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