Abstract: How the Media Covers School Shootings

School shootings are horrible atrocities that make the country stand still. We, as a society, question the cruel fate of events that occurred in places that are supposed to be safe. We especially question the student who committed the crime. The media and experts look at a dozen different factors that could attribute to such extreme acts: did the student have mental problems, past traumatic history, history of violence, etc. However, what happens when the media and the public take factors such as the person’s gender or race into consideration? When these sort of events happen, there country could feel alot of remorse, but also strong backlash.I will be examining the media coverage and following events of two school shootings: Columbine High School and Virginia Tech.


The perpetrators of the school shootings are mostly males. Jackson Katz has a theory that masculinity is a major factor in school shootings (http://www.ibrattleboro.com/article.php/20080416100143489). Boys feel like they have to prove themselves in order to be real men. Katz has a point that if it is the environment that these boys live in that causes them to lash out, then there should be more school shooters who are women. In many cases, teen shooters have a history of being teased or left out of the group. This must make some boys feel vulnerbale, powerless, and desperate.

How the media and public covers the perpetrator's personal story reflects society's standards. When the Columbine shooting occured, no one took the boys' race or ethnicity into account. When you type their names into internet social network groups like facebook, you get a page that honors their memory and expresses sympathy for them. (http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2334223570) This is not the case for the Virginia Tech shooting, in many of the media clips, there was a highlight that the perpetrator was an Korean immigrant. When you type in his name on facebook, you get a page with groups that are expressesing hate and even intolerance. (http://www.facebook.com/s.php?q=seung%20cho&n=-1&k=200000010&s=10&hash=d046a3d903ce8b5905b100a7aa3ce638)