Mass media magnification of school shootings and its effects: Part Two
I’ve had a lot of traffic on this article. I felt the need to post another article explaining why the media “mass magnifies” tragedies. Believe it or not they don’t mean to and sometimes do stories to correct the perception they’ve given. It’s all just an effort for numbers.
When a tragedy happens, every news outlet is in competition for your attention. Essentially every outlet has the same exact information but each outlet wants you to watch their channel for coverage.
Example: The Columbine Shooting
I can clearly remember The Columbine Shooting. It was my 17th birthday and I was glued to the news to watch the events unfold.
KDFW, WFAA and NBC5 were competing all day right along with the cable channels covering the shooting. I kept hearing words like “massacre” and “rampage” and phrases like “stormed the school” all day. It was scary.
News networks (and this is the same for all T.V. shows) cut to commercial around the same time give or take a few seconds in hopes you won’t change the channel, but they try to come back earlier then the other news stations (or shows.)
News networks also promise “special reports” that end up being an insight from a local psychologist who thinks they know what the Columbine shooters were thinking or feeling.
Why do they do this? They are competing for numbers! They need your numbers because your numbers sell air time for commercials and many other things. They have to differentiate themselves from the other networks to get your attention. If they don’t then numbers go down (and that’s bad.)
Obviously this isn’t new information- but this is where it all becomes circular:
Networks are competing for numbers > The same “massacre” is all over the news > “Massacre” gets over reported in an effort to get numbers (you must watch “x” channel) > People become scared of ___________ new threat
Hope that helps explain our media world a little. If you don’t like it, don’t watch it (I don’t).
-Miss Information
eff the press 