Media salience and the process of framing: Coverage of the Columbine school shootings

Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly

Volumn 81, Issue 1, 2004, Pages 22-35

  Chyi, Hsiang Iris ^a   McCombs, Maxwell ^b  

^a CHINESE UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG   (Hong Kong)

^b UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

MEDIA ROLE;

EID: 2942672398     PISSN: 10776990     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/107769900408100103     Document Type: Article

References (48)

1. Maxwell E. McCombs and Tamara Bell, "The Agenda-Setting Role of Mass Communication," in An Integrated Approach to Communication Theory and Research, ed. Michael Salwen and Donald Stacks (NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1996), 93-110;
2. Maxwell E. McCombs and Amy Reynolds, "News Influence on Our Pictures of the World," in Media Effects: Advances in Theory and Research, 2d ed., ed. Jennings Bryant and Dolf Zillmann (NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2002), 1-18.
3. Maxwell E. McCombs and Jian-Hua Zhu, "Capacity, Diversity, and Volatility of the Public Agenda: Trends from 1954 to 1994," Public Opinion Quarterly 59 (winter 1995): 495-525.
4. See, for example, Lynda Lee Kaid, Katherine Hale, and Jo Ann Williams, "Media Agenda-Setting of a Specific Political Event," Journalism Quarterly 54 (autumn 1977): 584-87.
5. McCombs and Bell, "The Agenda-Setting Role of Mass Communication," 105.
6. Anthony Downs, "Up and Down with Ecology: The 'Issue-Attention Cycle,'" The Public Interest 28 (spring 1972): 38-50.
7. Maxwell E. McCombs and Donald L. Shaw, "The Agenda-Setting Function of Mass Media," Public Opinion Quarterly 36 (summer 1972): 176-87.
8. James W. Dearing and Everett M. Rogers, Agenda Setting (CA: Sage, 1996).
9. McCombs and Bell, "The Agenda-Setting Role of Mass Communication";
10. Maxwell E. McCombs and George Estrada, "The News Media and the Pictures in Our Heads," in Do the Media Govern? Politicians, Voters, and Reporters in America, ed. Shanto Iyengar and Richard Reeves (CA: Sage, 1997), 237-47;
11. McCombs and Reynolds, "News Influence on Our Pictures of the World."
12. L. Erwin Atwood, Ardyth B. Sohn, and Harold Sohn, "Daily Newspaper Contributions to Community Discussion," Journalism Quarterly 55 (autumn 1978): 570-76;
13. Marc Benton and P. Jean Frazier, "The Agenda-Setting Function of the Mass Media at Three Levels of 'Information Holding,'" Communication Research 3 (July 1976): 261-74;
14. David Cohen, "A Report on a Non-Election Agenda Setting Study" (paper presented at the annual conferences of AEJ, Ottawa, Canada, 1975);
15. David H. Weaver, Doris Graber, Maxwell E. McCombs, and Chaim H. Eyal, Media Agenda Setting in a Presidential Election: Issues, Images and Interest (NY: Praeger, 1981).
16. Salma I. Ghanem, "Filling in the Tapestry: The Second Level of Agenda Setting," in Communication and Democracy, ed. Maxwell E. McCombs, Donald L. Shaw, and David H. Weaver (NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1997), 3-14;
17. McCombs and Reynolds, "News Influence on Our Pictures of the World."
18. McCombs and Estrada, "The News Media and the Pictures in Our Heads";
19. McCombs and Reynolds, "News Influence on Our Pictures of the World."
20. Ghanem, "Filling in the Tapestry";
21. McCombs and Reynolds, "News Influence on Our Pictures of the World";
22. Maxwell E. McCombs and Salma I. Ghanem, "The Convergence of Agenda Setting and Framing," in Framing Public Life: Perspectives on Media and Our Understanding of the Social World, ed. Stephen D. Reese, Oscar H. Gandy Jr., and August E. Grant (NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2001), 67-81.
23. Robert M. Entman, "Framing: Toward Clarification of a Fractured Paradigm," Journal of Communication 43 (autumn 1993): 52.
24. James W. Tankard, Jr., "The Empirical Approach to the Study of Media Framing," in Framing Public Life, ed. Reese, Gandy, and Grant, 100-101.
25. McCombs and Ghanem, "The Convergence of Agenda Setting and Framing."
26. Joel J. Davis, "The Effects of Message Framing on Response to Environmental Communications," Journalism Quarterly 72 (summer 1995): 285-99;
27. William A. Gamson and Andre Modigliani, "Media Discourse and Public Opinion on Nuclear Power: A Constructionist Approach," American Journal of Sociology'95 (July 1989): 1-37;
28. Shanto Iyengar, Is Anyone Responsible? How Television Frames Political Issues (IL: University of Chicago Press, 1991);
29. Shanto Iyengar and Adam Simon, "New Coverage of the Gulf Crisis and Public Opinion: A Study of Agenda-Setting, Priming, and Framing," Communication Research 20 (June 1993): 365-83;
30. J. William Spencer and Elizabeth Triche, "Media Construction of Risk and Safety: Differential Framings of Hazard Events," Sociological Inquiry 64 (May 1994): 199-213;
31. Tankard, "The Empirical Approach to the Study of Media Framing."
32. Ghanem, "Filling in the Tapestry," 10.
33. Ghanem, "Filling in the Tapestry."
34. Tankard, "The Empirical Approach to the Study of Media Framing."
35. Iyengar, Is Anyone Responsible?
36. Arlene Levinson, "Clinton Trial, Colorado Massacre Voted Top '99 Stories," San Angelo Standard-Times, 27 December 1999.
37. Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, "Columbine Shooting Biggest News Draw of 1999," 28 December 1999, .
38. Todd Gitlin, The Whole World is Watching (CA: University of California Press, 1980);
39. Allen Mazur, "Putting Radon on the Public Risk Agenda," Science, Technology and Human Values 12 (summer/fall 1987): 86-93;
40. Stephen D. Reese and Lucig H. Danielian, "Intermedia Influence and the Drug Issue: Converging on Cocaine," in Communication Campaigns about Drugs: Government, Media, and the Public, ed. Pamela J. Shoemaker (NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1989), 29-45.
41. Scott's pi as a reliability index takes into account the extent of inter-coder agreement which results from chance. See Ole R. Holsti, Content Analysis for the Social Sciences and Humanities (MA: Addison-Wesley, 1969), 140-41.
42. Regarding this "past and individual" association, here are two example quotes: The father of a victim in the Colorado shooting said yesterday that his son had "had a conflict" with the presumed gunmen last year and believed that his son was a target of the rampage at Columbine High School ("Terror in Littleton: The Dead; Father of Victim Says Son Had Dispute With Suspect," New York Times, 22 April 1999). It was just 11 weeks ago that a court officer released Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold early from a juvenile diversion program, saying they had learned the intended lessons in the months since their arrest and had promising futures ("Terror in Littleton: The Suspects; Sketch of Killers: Contradictions and Confusion," New York Times, 23 April 1999).
43. Regarding this "future and societal" association, here are two example quotes: Seizing what they hoped was new momentum for gun control after the shootings in Littleton, Colo., Senate Democrats today unveiled a broad package of proposals that Republicans, though skeptical, did not dismiss out of hand ("Democrats in Senate Offer Measures to Control Guns," New York Times, 7 May 1999). President Clinton today urged the entertainment industry to voluntarily limit the glorification of guns in movie advertisements and previews and to consider whether movies rated PG-13 contain excessive and gratuitous violence (" Clinton Urges Film Industry to Limit Violence on Screen," New York Times, 16 May 1999).
44. James P. Winter and Chaim H. Eyal, "Agenda-Setting for the Civil Rights Issue," Public Opinion Quarterly 45 (autumn 1981): 376-83.
45. This is an example quote from a story using the core, "community plus present" frame: After a long day of agony for victims' parents and anxiety for police officers searching for explosives, the authorities this evening removed the bodies of 15 people killed in a massacre at Columbine High School on Tuesday ("Terror in Littleton: The Overview; 15 Bodies Are Removed From School in Colorado," New York Times, 22 April 1999).
46. This is an example quote from a story using the extended, "individual plus past" frame: Propelled by grief, Ms. Wilson has spent the last year trying to make sense of the carnage in playgrounds and libraries over the last 18 months. She lost her own daughter, Brittheny, to a pair of middle school-age killers in Jonesboro, Ark., last year ("Terror in Littleton: The Reasons; Violence by Youths: Looking for Answers," New York Times, 22 April 1999). This is another example quote from a story using the extended, "societal plus future" frame: At Pelham Memorial High School in Pelham, N.Y., the principal, Robert G. Shillito, distributed a letter to teachers today asking them to "pause to consider whether such an event could happen here in Pelham" ("Terror in Littleton: Other Schools; Can It Happen Here? Across U.S., Schools Wonder," New York Times, 22 April 1999).
47. McCombs and Ghanem, "The Convergence of Agenda Setting and Framing."
48. Robert Darnton, "Writing News and Telling Stories," Daedalus 104 (spring 1975): 175-94.