With the increased social attention to active shooting events in the United States, news outlets are featuring news briefs through social media platforms like Twitter. Using this method of information sharing, news organizations can instantly reach consumers as events unfold in real time. With character limitations with Twitter, one may assume news organizations use words carefully and succinctly to report vital information to the public. By implementing a content analysis of news organization Twitter contributions, messages provided by both legacy and digital native news outlets were evaluated. Using Department of Justice reports specifically covering active shooting events, 32 specific incidents covering the years of 2014-2018 were selected for analysis. This resulted in the identification of over 14,000 individual Tweets. These Tweets were then analyzed using a content analysis to identify overarching themes. Apparent from the onset was the clear priority of news organizations to report on the perpetrators of active shooting events while focusing noticeably less on the victims of these violent events. Further, policy advocation or calls to change current policy was noticeably absent from Twitter discussions. The focus of this paper is to explore the characteristics of emphasized by legacy and digital native news media outlets. This analysis has direct implications on the culture of gun violence, as well as market models which influence the news production process when reporting on active shooting incidents in the United States. / Doctor of Philosophy / Social media has increased in popularity in recent history. The incorporation of social media into a variety of topics, including reporting the news, has also increased. This aim of this study is to evaluate the types of contributions made by news media outlets on the social media platform Twitter. Specifically, this research is focused on Twitter contributions pertaining to active shooting events in the United States between 2014-2018. 32 active shooting events were identified over this period, which includes a collection of more than 14,000 Tweets by news outlets. Priorities of news media outlets were identified by analyzing the content of Tweets. Analysis revealed a significant portion of Tweets characterizing the offender's personal identity, background, and actions while providing sparse reporting on victims in these events. This research provides critical insight into how Twitter is used to report on criminal justice events. Additionally, this study illustrates the ways in which social media is being used to report the news, and how this may differ from traditional methods of news dissemination.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VTETD/oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/105399 |
| Date | 24 April 2020 |
| Creators | Callahan, Jason T. |
| Contributors | Sociology, Shoemaker, Donald J., Harrison, Anthony Kwame, Ryan, John W., Hawdon, James E. |
| Publisher | Virginia Tech |
| Source Sets | Virginia Tech Theses and Dissertation |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Dissertation |
| Format | ETD, application/pdf |
| Rights | In Copyright, http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ |
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