Date of Award

2022

Publisher

North Dakota State University

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Awarded

Master of Science (MS)

Program

Criminal Justice and Political Science

Department

Criminal Justice

College

Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences

Faculty Advisor

Thompson, Kevin

Description

Mass shootings are commonplace in media. The media reports as to why the events happened, often within days or hours. These reasons attributed often lead to political debates on how to deter future mass casualty events. The portrayal by the media is important because their perceptions influence the perceptions of their audience. As of beginning this thesis, there is a lack of research utilizing qualitative analysis to analyze the offender reports using large datasets from the media. This thesis is an exploratory analysis and examines the number of times the offender's name is mentioned to determine whether there are sufficient conditions for the copycat effect. This thesis also explores the attributed wording used in the media articles of mass shooting offenders within the initial 30 days of the shooting. Finally, coverage between the newspapers and events is discussed as well to explore whether certain shootings were provided significantly more coverage.

Rights

NDSU policy 190.6.2

Rights Link

https://www.ndsu.edu/fileadmin/policy/190.pdf

Handle Identifier

https://hdl.handle.net/10365/33315

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