A recent guide focusing on reshaping the narrative about gun violence highlights solutions and provides a roadmap for journalists looking to spotlight the communities most affected by gunfire.
guidecreated by the Berkeley Media Studies Group, is aimed at supporters seeking to improve public understanding of firearm violence. However, there are several lessons that reporters can get from the guide.
“When news shines a spotlight on daily incidents involving firearms, mainstream outlets have a hard time talking about the causes and solutions of firearms in a way that can help readers and viewers get a better understanding. Often, the patterns and truths about what is necessary to make our community safer.”
Instead, coverage focuses primarily on murder, with black and brown communities overrepresenting them as perpetrators of violence, according to the guide. The main source is often law enforcement, and rarely the people most affected by violence.
The guide means that this type of reporting often means that audiences are not aware of the prevalence of issues such as firearm suicide and domestic violence, as well as structural inequality such as racism and poverty. I will. It also prevents black and brown communities from being treated as expert voices and ignores potential ways of preventing violence.
“If community-led efforts to reduce firearm injuries and deaths are not part of the public conversation, voters, funders, potential community partners, and others are aware of them and involved. It is more difficult for those who lead those efforts to ensure that the guide reads.
According to the guide, stronger news coverage of gun violence is important as it broadens public understanding and knowledge of the issue and shapes how viewers understand potential solutions.
Berkeley recommends using community members as a source of information as it can challenge harmful stereotypes and stories, bring attention to police-related justice concerns and point out community-driven violence prevention. .
Framing and patterns
This guide includes an analysis of the types of framing and reporting patterns that are common in news reports on gun violence.
“While thorough reports can raise issues like firearms, issues that are subject to news media are often ignored and remain largely outside of public discourse and policy debate. “The guide reads. “News frames also affect which perspectives are considered reliable and worthy and which solutions are considered promoted or ignored.”
This guide breaks down two general news frames: episodes and themes.
Episode Framing It focuses on individual or specific cases of violence. If this type is used to report gun violence, individuals are responsible for creating and resolving the issue. This framing makes it difficult for audiences to see systematic solutions, and violence appears inevitable.
Theme framing It shows the broader context in which individual incidents occur. This approach helps audiences see systematic issues determining the risk of firearm injury and death, as well as potential solutions to prevent or reduce harm. The story using this framing embed personal experiences within the wider landscape. It helps audiences ask bigger questions about community, institutions and government accountability.
Guide details
To develop the guide, researchers at the Berkeley Media Studies Group explored how news coverage in California frames community violence, domestic violence and firearm suicide.
Overall, their analysis found that the news was driven by isolated incidents of crime and violence, focusing on the emotional and physical effects of individual victims and their families. They also found that law enforcement voices are the most cited. And the solution was largely lacking in coverage.
Due to community gun violence, researchers found community-level violence and police shootings dominate compensation. These stories also use language that is more intimidating, threatening, or beyond helping, for the victims and the perpetrators of violence. These stories occasionally cited people who had lived experiences.
Stories about domestic violence, including firearms, were not as frequent as stories about community violence. Reports of domestic violence often included quotations from advocacy groups, mental health professionals, and/or researchers that provided greater context. However, they also found that coverage can highlight that it cast doubt on individual choices, reinforced responsibility and stigma, or the survivor’s narrative.
Firearm suicide stories were the least common. The stories were more likely to “expand the frame” and included contextual factors such as income inequality and poor access to mental health care. These stories also cited researchers or mental health providers more than stories about other issues related to firearms. However, their findings determined that a fifth of the articles on suicide would include explicit details about how the person died.
Solution Story
The guide also identified community-driven prevention strategies that provide good story ideas about gun violence.
- Collect and share “highly localized” data. Existing datasets are often limited to injuries or deaths at the county, state, or local level. These numbers could rule out trends in domestic violence, community violence and firearm suicide. This guide shares examples of what local data collection looks like.
- Community violence intervention leaders can coordinate interventions using hyperlocal data collection on firearm murder and assault.
- Firearm suicide prevention advocates can create asset maps of voluntary firearm safe storage sites within their communities for those at risk.
- Advocates of domestic violence survivors can use accurate local data to show that common domestic violence-related firearm murders are compared to other firearm murders.
- It creates sustainable support for those at risk of harm. This could mean a community violence intervention program that attracts people shot to reduce future violence. From a firearm suicide prevention perspective, support appears to work with family, friends and loved ones to spread awareness about safe gun storage. Another example is training domestic violence survivors to talk about firearm access and associated risks.
Additional resources
These reporting guides can also help you learn how to responsibly cover issues related to firearm suicide.
