White Means Never Having to Say You're Sorry The Racial Project in Explaining Mass Shootings

Mingus, William; Zopf, Bradley J.

doi:10.17161/str.1808.10073

Cited by 8 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…37 – 39 By contrast, race and ethnicity often play a key role in accounts of mass shootings when the perpetrator is not white. For example, after the 2007 mass shooting at Virginia Tech University perpetrated by a college student of Korean-American heritage, media outlets reported that Asian-Americans experienced fear of retaliation and felt forced to issue an apology on behalf of their “group.” 40 …”

Section: An Agenda For Mental Health Research Into Mass Shootings Andmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mental Illness, Mass Shootings, and the Future of Psychiatric Research into American Gun Violence

Metzl

Piemonte

McKay

2021

Harv Rev Psychiatry

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This article outlines a four-part strategy for future research in mental health and complementary disciplines that will broaden understanding of mass shootings and multi-victim gun homicides. First, researchers must abandon the starting assumption that acts of mass violence are driven primarily by diagnosable psychopathology in isolated “lone wolf” individuals. The destructive motivations must be situated, instead, within larger social structures and cultural scripts. Second, mental health professionals and scholars must carefully scrutinize any apparent correlation of violence with mental illness for evidence of racial bias in the official systems that define, measure, and record psychiatric diagnoses, as well as those that enforce laws and impose criminal justice sanctions. Third, to better understand the role of firearm access in the occurrence and lethality of mass shootings, research should be guided by an overarching framework that incorporates social, cultural, legal, and political, but also psychological, aspects of private gun ownership in the United States. Fourth, effective policies and interventions to reduce the incidence of mass shootings over time—and to prevent serious acts of violence more generally—will require an expanded body of well-funded interdisciplinary research that is informed and implemented through the sustained engagement of researchers with affected communities and other stakeholders in gun violence prevention. Emerging evidence that the coronavirus pandemic has produced a sharp increase both in civilian gun sales and in the social and psychological determinants of injurious behavior adds special urgency to this agenda.

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Section: An Agenda For Mental Health Research Into Mass Shootings Andmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mental Illness, Mass Shootings, and the Future of Psychiatric Research into American Gun Violence

Metzl

Piemonte

McKay

2021

Harv Rev Psychiatry

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“…They find an emphasis on the shooter's ethnicity, in contrast with coverage of Columbine, where the white shooter's racial background was less highlighted. Similarly, Mingus and Zopf (2010) observe that for four mass shootings, across a variety of news sources, the race of minoritized perpetrators is emphasized, while the race of white shooters is often omitted.…”

Section: Nationality Race Ethnicity and Religionmentioning

confidence: 96%

News Media Coverage of Gun Violence: A Systematic Review

Topaz,

Higdon

2024

Preprint

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We provide a targeted review of research on gun violence and the news media in the United States. Starting with an initial search yielding 923 potential sources, we apply the PRISMA protocol to refine our focus to 80 peer-reviewed, empirical studies published since the year 2000. We identify several consensus findings. First, news media coverage of shooting incidents tends to be greater for incidents that: involve numerous victims, particularly when they are women and/or children; occur in schools, religious sites, or government buildings; or are carried out by perpetrators who are young, who are ideologically driven, and/or who show signs of severe mental illness. Second, race plays a significant role in shaping narrative frames, often protecting white individuals, regardless of whether they are victim or perpetrator. Third, media narratives have displayed dynamic evolution over the course of decades, transitioning from framing gun violence as an isolated, episodic issue to addressing it as a broader societal concern. Finally, news coverage of gun violence negatively impacts audience emotions, especially by elevating fear, and is associated with increased gun background checks, suggestive of more gun purchasing. However, the tangible influence of news coverage on inciting further violence remains contested. Limitations of our review include its narrow scope and exclusion of social media, an important aspect of contemporary discourse. We identify a need for more inclusive demographic identity representation in the literature and, finally, we discuss the intricacies of three interrelated elements: the occurrence of different types of gun violence, the level of news media attention they receive, and the extent of academic research investigating these media portrayals.

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“…Scholars have attempted to apply the racial project to important fields such as: education, the media, religion, and cultural studies (Staiger 2004;Alumkal 2004;Mingus and Zopf 2010;Brooms 2014). All of these fields play a role in our daily lived experiences, and all of them represent a racial project in some way.…”

Section: Racial Projects: Discussion and Relevancementioning

confidence: 99%

Reel racism, real consequences : a multiple case analysis of savior films as racial projects.

Jordan

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White Means Never Having to Say You're Sorry The Racial Project in Explaining Mass Shootings

Abstract: Mass shootings, such as the ones that occurred at

Cited by 8 publications

References 18 publications

Mental Illness, Mass Shootings, and the Future of Psychiatric Research into American Gun Violence

Mental Illness, Mass Shootings, and the Future of Psychiatric Research into American Gun Violence

News Media Coverage of Gun Violence: A Systematic Review

Reel racism, real consequences : a multiple case analysis of savior films as racial projects.

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