Media Influence On Mass Shootings

The United States will not soon forget the rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary School that occurred just two weeks before Christmas in 2012 in Newtown, Connecticut. This tragedy resulted in the death of twenty students and eight adults. Mass shootings are blood-curdling and frightening. At the same time, they often create invisible fear to society because they are often unpredictable.

Mass shooting itself is a threat; therefore, when media overstate the content and statistics of the shooting incidents, the threat would slowly expand and a recessive scare would slowly develop in people’s mind. In the United States, mass shootings do not happen very often. Nevertheless, the media coverage often overstates the incident through various methods to

Glassner mentions, “A scare can continue long after its rightful expiration date so long as it has two things hold for it; it has to tap into current cultural anxieties, and it has to have media-savvy advocates behind it” (p177). In order to get their news to appear more vivid and let the fear to seem more real. The media incessantly cite the previous incidents when they are reporting the similar cases; however, they would only reiterate the result of the shooting. According to the article “Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting” “The shootings instantly brought to mind episodes such as the Columbine High School massacre that killed 15 in 1999 and the July shootings at a movie theater in Aurora, Colo., that left 12 dead” (Sandy Hook Elementary School). While the media are explaining the Sandy Hook Elementary Shooting incident, they incidentally mention the previous mass shootings, “Columbine” and “Aurora.” To the media, recalling precious incidents is just like reviewing the past. Nevertheless, to the society, it is a serious warning. when previous incidents appear on the new report, it makes people recoil in terror and consider, which a fear successfully developed in the