Between the lines: Media coverage of Orlando and beyond.

Abstract

The relative unresponsiveness of the news media to the racism and homophobia of the Orlando shootings was deeply disturbing to the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community. The focus on terrorism and gun control (major topics in the 2016 presidential campaign) neglected the fact that this massacre was a hate crime. This article describes some of the fundamentals involved in the process of reporting the news and decision-making in the media that likely contributed to the narrow reporting of this tragedy. It also addresses heteronormativity, the impact of neglecting to highlight racism and homophobia in this shooting, and what might have been gained by more appropriate interpretation of the shooting as a hate crime. Additional suggestions are also offered regarding the roles that psychologists can play. Public Significance StatementThis article examines the processes that influenced the news media coverage of the Orlando shooting, the failure to focus on the massacre as a hate crime, and the issues associated with reporting LGBT hate crimes. It calls attention to the importance of how a news item is framed and the possible contributions psychologists can make in informing the frame.

Exposure to Stigma Elicits Negative Affect and Alcohol Craving Among Young Adult Sexual Minority Heavy Drinkers

“…Researchers and clinicians must utilize psychological science to advocate against heterosexist legislative efforts; this is especially important given increases in legislators introducing heterosexist bills that attempt to legalize discrimination against sexual minorities (Warbelow and Diaz, ). Moreover, the media must also reconsider how to carefully and sensitively cover acts of sexual stigma, such as hate crimes, to mitigate against their vicarious harms given that they can have negative effects on sexual minorities (see for examples based on the Pulse Nightclub shooting in Orlando: Hancock and Haldeman, ).…”

Perceptions of safety among LGBTQ people following the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting.

“…However, Hancock and Haldeman (2017) also present information regarding allegations that the shooter was a closeted gay man. The authors posit that these allegations emerged immediately after the shooting and were not investigated in a systematic manner suggesting that the media “could easily have included a frame that involved a homophobic male (who may have been gay) who killed gay men.” First, given that a number of the victims did not identify as gay cisgender men and that the shooting took place during the club’s Latin night, we would like to suggest that this argument is conjecture and leaves out large segments of the LGBTQ community who were also victims.…”

Omar Mateen as US citizen, not foreign threat: Homonationalism and LGBTQ online representations of the Pulse nightclub shooting

“…Homonationalism has been used to explore a wide range of issues, yet research has only begun to explore the Pulse nightclub shooting through this lens (Calafell, 2017; Chávez, 2016). The small but growing body of scholarship focused on Pulse has devoted considerable attention to the role of mainstream media coverage in failing to mention the Latinx status of the victims (Acosta, 2016; Hancock and Haldeman, 2017; Koons, 2017; Lawrence, 2016; Ramirez et al., 2018). While this erasure remains important to emphasize, less attention has been devoted to the ways in which homonationalism has been implicated in the media coverage; feminist analyses have more frequently focused on the relationship between masculinity and gun violence (Haider, 2016; Hamblin, 2016).…”