In an analysis of nearly 36,000 local and national online media reports of shootings between 2014 and 2023, a new study led by scholars at Northwestern University has revealed significant differences in how news outlets report on mass shootings and police-involved shootings depending on the racial breakdown of the neighborhoods where those shootings took place.
According to their analysis, the researchers found mass shootings in majority-White neighborhoods received about twice the media attention as those occurring in neighborhoods where a majority of residents were people of color. Conversely, the authors also found that coverage of police-involved shootings was disproportionately focused on communities of color.
Additionally, the study found that reports of shootings in majority White neighborhoods had a greater focus on the people involved in those incidents, while coverage of shootings in majority-non-White communities had increased racialization and framing related to crime. When articles about gun violence mentioned race, 62 percent of those mentions referred to people of color.
“Real-world gun violence disproportionately impacts communities of color, and our findings reveal that media coverage may compound these inequities through differential patterns of representation at scale,” the authors conclude.
The research team included co-authors from the University of Washington and the University of California, Davis.
