Mike Weisser summarizes new BMSG research on news portrayals of gun violence and refers to the report as a “significant and necessary contribution to helping the gun-control community figure out how to effectively frame their narratives about gun violence.”
Gun violence is preventable, but not enough people know that because news coverage tends to characterize it as inevitable and extreme. Stories about mass shootings dominate coverage, even though these tragedies aren’t the major cause of gun deaths in this country. How, then, do the three most common types of gun violence — suicide, domestic violence, and community violence — appear in news coverage? And to what extent are solutions discussed? We explored these questions and more in our latest news analysis.
BMSG’s head of research, Pamela Mejia, discusses what aspects of coverage have changed — and stayed the same — since Columbine, what details are often missing from the news on gun violence, and how journalists and advocates can do more to show that prevention is possible.
In collaboration with the Hope and Heal Fund, BMSG is working to better understand the narrative on gun violence in California and consider how we can widen the frame to include more than mass shootings.
Eight funders are combining resources to achieve greater impact on preventing gun violence through a new anti-violence effort, the Hope and Heal Fund. BMSG is working with Hope and Heal to research the narrative on gun violence and reshape it to include other forms of violence beyond highly publicized mass shootings.
Our objective with this project was to bring accuracy to the current debate about guns and increase the visibility of public health perspectives on handgun violence.
How one advocate helped pass 11 gun violence prevention bills in the aftermath of the country’s deadliest mass shooting.
The Sandy Hook school shooting is yet another wake-up call to the nation about the need to stop gun violence. Yet keeping the issue in the media spotlight and mustering the necessary political willpower to make substantive policy changes may prove difficult. As BMSG research shows, this was the case after Columbine. Will this time be different?
