Abstract
The 1990s were the birth of the so-called rampage school shootings. In News Framing of School Shootings: Journalism and American Social Problems (2016), Michael McCluskey, a former journalist and current communication professor at The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, trains his sight on the macro- and microperspectives of rampage school shootings. His book includes a 10-chapter analysis of news coverage and social factors from 11 shooting events during 1996-2012. The result of this analysis produces a well-researched and informative text that examines various issues from News, Society and Violence (Chapter 1) to Popular Media, Moral Panics and Culture Wars (Chapter 5), and even still Heroism Archetypes (Chapter 9) and finally the Evaluation of News Discourse, Effects and Lessons (Chapter 10). The chapters offer a useful framework for understanding how school shootings affect “news coverage” and the subsequent “public discourse” (p. 2) between policy makers, stakeholders and those affected by the tragedy.
For McCluskey, the speculation about causes and responses to “rampage” school shootings (p. 5) are linked in part to what he argues is the framing of nine problem definitions. These definitions are an attempt to find deeper meaning within the given tragedy. One of these definitions is the so-called rampage shooting. McCluskey adopts Katherine Newman’s perspective that these shootings involve attacks on multiple parties selected at random, where schools in rural communities are the chosen target, because they are the heart and soul of public life in small towns (p. 5). While I understand the author’s attempt to operationalize “rampage” shooting as a term of prominence, I think this limited scope may further exacerbate the challenge in understanding the importance of the larger context of school shootings.
For victims and persons affected by school shootings, the notion of “rampage” potentially establishes a hierarchy of threat and/or victimization based on the “type” or “category” of the shooting. Does the Westside Middle School shooting (which happened just five miles from the community where the reviewer now lives and works), a shooting that might be categorized as a “rampage” shooting, assume a higher prominence in society, over a school shooting in an urban context, if all other factors are equal? McCluskey attempts to address this important question by examining the social construction of news, the evolution of news values in a given context and the framing that occurs within respective media organizations. It is worth noting that McCluskey points out that, as of 2011, there had been more school shootings in the United States (76) than the rest of the world combined (44; p. 6). The frequency of such events has also increased in recent years, marking the importance of this book and research areas of study.
Chapter 2, News Framing, Frame Building and Problem Definitions, is the bedrock of this text. Operating on the premise that news is socially constructed, McCluskey uses 11 shooting case studies to present a four-level map (individual, professional, organizational and external) to understand his overarching frames. His mixed methodological investigation presents a wealth of qualitative and quantitative data increasing the validity of his findings and frames. The scope of this study is limited to words in the news coverage of school shootings, providing an opportunity for additional research that examines the visual frames (Bock, 2015; Borah, 2009; Brantner, Lobinger, & Wetzstein, 2011; Fahmy, 2005) for school shootings.
Chapter 3, Influences on School Shooting News Frames, is useful for the quantitative researcher who desires a succinct presentation of the data. The stats are both broad and specific. Additional context of the numbers is understood as McCluskey fleshes out themes such as the audience ideology, influences of frame-building and the impact of news values in the various chapters. His expansive work with problem definitions offers researchers an opportunity to frame their own code sheets and studies or interrogate the presented categories for a more nuanced approach.
Chapter 6, Religion, Coping and Blaming, reveals a noteworthy contribution to the school shooting conversation. I think it also reveals some of the paradoxes that exist when sociological, psychological and anthropological themes are rightly examined in the context of the shooting events. This chapter presents an abundance of insights that transcend one’s political party, social and economic status and/or religious affiliation. McCluskey notes, “Religion was three times more likely to be invoked as a means of coping or response to shooting than any outright blame or responsibility for the shooting” (p. 116). The findings suggest that blame and coping are attributes that all in society wrestle with. When infused in the journalistic conversation, there are many ways these tragedies are presented. However, the use of religion by journalists in presenting shooting tragedies provides a connection to communities and community healing (p. 118).
Chapters 7 and 8, Other Individual-Level Problem Definitions and Other Societal-Level Problem Definitions, are divided into individual chapters to show the various levels (individual and societal) of problem definitions. For McCluskey, the problem definitions of “mental health, parent/adults and drugs/alcohol” (p. 119) are viewed on an individual level, whereas “schools, criminal justice and teen life” (p. 119) are seen as societal level problems which are grouped within the cultural and community context.
News Framing of School Shootings offers a significant contribution to the journalism studies, social discourse and framing literature. While the text at times reads as a dissertation outtake, in that it is formal, well researched and grounded in the literature, the takeaways and sound methodological research are worth pushing through the occasional dense parts of the book. The text may also serve as a useful companion for a research methods course. While the topic of school shootings is challenging, McCluskey reveals his journalistic compassion researching this difficult topic and should be commended. Again, the frequency of such events has also increased in recent years, marking the importance of this book and research areas of study.