I vår studie har vi undersökt hur journalister gestaltar tre amerikanska skolskjutningar i svensk och amerikansk press. Skolskjutningarna ägde rum på Columbine High School, Virginia Tech och Sandy Hook Elementary School. Vi har analyserat sammanlagt 91 texter publicerade i Aftonbladet, Dagens Nyheter och New York Times. Teorierna vi har valt till vår studie är gestaltningsteori, media events och moralpanik. Kvantitativt har vi undersökt hur journalisterna valt att gestalta gärningsmännen och vilka som fått komma till tals i artiklarna. Kvalitativt har vi närstuderat 12 texter med fokus på skillnaderna mellan de svenska och amerikanska journalisternas gestaltning. Slutsatserna vi kan dra från vår studie är att rapporteringen skiljer sig åt mellan svenska Dagens Nyheter och amerikanska New York Times. De amerikanska journalisterna har större benägenhet att gestalta överlevande i skolskjutningar som “hjältar” och gärningsmännen som “onda personer”. De svenska journalisterna dramatiserar händelserna med fokus på sorg och tragedi. Både de svenska och amerikanska journalisterna väljer att gestalta gärningsmännen som unika individer.

More guns-less violence? A qualitative and comparative analysis between the swedish and the american daily news-press.

Photojournalism captures moments within an event or space in time that are used to tell a larger story. Photographs are powerful tools for communication because these moments not only represent facts; they also have an ability to speak to viewers on a relatable and emotional level. With this power comes ethical responsibility and natural tension points between photograph, and journalistic practices. Journalism’s ethics codes group points of discussion specific to photographs into categories of manipulation, privacy, or graphic content. This thesis argues that these issues fall into broader overlapping themes of authenticity and sensitivity. Using visual analysis of four photographs from the Boston Marathon bombing and Newtown school shooting, it considers how journalists deal with the relationship between photography and journalistic theory using this ethical framework of authenticity and sensitivity. It concludes with a discussion of best practices for coverage of tragic events from the real-world perspective of the photojournalist.

School shootings in the United States have garnered significant attention. Since 1999, several high-profile school shootings have taken place across the U.S. in Connecticut, Virginia, Florida, etc. The phenomenon of school shootings and the resultant moral panic is explored by examining media coverage to understand how the media contributes to public responses to these tragic incidents. Although school shootings tend to receive attention, we do not know how this attention can differ across school shootings. This study uses the moral panic framework to assess how national newspaper coverage portrays the Sandy Hook Elementary and Robb Elementary school shootings. I find that the media discourse differs between the two shootings considerably when assessing each attribute of the moral panic framework. This is important as school shootings are reported differently, thus changing public perception. I argue that the level of panic we’ve seen after previous school shootings such as Columbine has decreased.

Understanding modern carbonate depositional systems gives valuable insights into the interpretation of ancient carbonate systems. Ancient carbonate strand plains have the potential to act as productive hydrocarbon reservoirs because of their relatively high porosity. Unfortunately, they are difficult to identify in the rock record because of the lack of work done on modern analogues. San Salvador Island in the Bahamas hosts a well-exposed and easily accessible Holocene strand plain, ideal as a modern analogue. Sandy Hook, located on the southeast part of the island, consists of approximately 35 ridge-swale features that show signs of four distinct zones of deposition. In this study, 20 sediment samples were collected from one meter in depth, and throughout each zone. The sediment analysis reveals remarkably consistent grain-size distributions across the four zones. Carbon-14 ages were taken from the sediment samples. They revealed ages decreasing from 2617 ± 188 YBP to modern moving seaward through zone 4. The ages reveal depositional rates of 0.08 to 0.29 meters of accretion per year. Four pseudo-3D GPR surveys were acquired in Zones B, C, and D, and a 2D GPR survey was acquired that spanned the three zones. The pseudo-3D surveys revealed consistent reflectors through the width of the survey indicating that the 2D surveys represent more than the single line. The 2D survey reveals semi-parallel seaward-dipping reflectors (representing fair-weather deposits) that are truncated by sigmoidal seaward-dipping reflectors (high-energy storm deposits). Indicating that Sandy Hook was built through both fair-weather deposits and high-energy storm events.