A recent guide focused on reframing the narrative on gun violence provides a roadmap for journalists looking to highlight solutions and spotlight the communities most affected by shootings.
The guide, created by the Berkeley Media Studies Group, is geared toward advocates looking to improve the public’s understanding of firearm violence. However, there are several lessons reporters can gain from the guide.
“When the news does spotlight day-to-day incidents involving firearms,” the guide reads, “mainstream outlets often struggle to tell stories about the causes of and solutions to firearm violence and firearm suicide in ways that can help readers and viewers understand larger patterns and truths about what it takes to make communities safer.”
Instead, the coverage primarily focuses on homicides and overrepresents Black and brown communities as perpetrators of violence, according to the guide. The main source is often law enforcement and rarely the people most impacted by violence.
The guide argues this type of coverage often means audiences aren’t aware of the prevalence of issues like firearm suicide and domestic violence and structural inequities like racism and poverty. It also keeps Black and brown communities from being treated as expert voices and ignores potential methods of violence prevention.
“When community-led efforts to reduce injury and death from firearms aren’t part of the public conversation, it’s harder for the people leading those efforts to ensure that voters, funders, potential community partners, and others are aware of and engaged in their work,” the guide reads.
Stronger news coverage on gun violence matters because it broadens the public’s understanding and knowledge about the issue and shapes how audiences understand potential solutions, the guide says.
Berkeley recommends using community members as sources because they can challenge harmful stereotypes or narratives, draw attention to justice concerns related to policing and point out community-led violence prevention.
Framing and patterns
The guide includes an analysis of the types of framing and reporting patterns often found in news reports on gun violence.
“Thorough reporting can raise the profile of an issue like firearms, while problems not covered by the news media are often neglected and remain largely outside public discourse and policy debate,” the guide reads. “News frames also influence whose perspectives are seen as credible and valuable, and which solutions are elevated or ignored.”
The guide breaks down the two common news frames: episodic and thematic.
Episodic framing focuses on an individual or a particular incident of violence. When this type is used to report on gun violence, the individual is held responsible for creating the problem and for solving it. This framing makes it hard for the audience to see systemic solutions and makes it seem like violence is inevitable.
Thematic framing illustrates the broader context in which individual incidents happen. This approach helps audiences see the systemic issues that determine the risk for firearm injuries and death and the potential solutions to prevent or reduce harm. Stories that use this framing embed the individual’s experience within the wider landscape. That helps the audience ask bigger questions about community, institutional and government accountability.
More about the guide
To develop the guide, researchers at Berkeley Media Studies Group explored how news coverage in California frames community violence, domestic violence and firearm suicide.
Overall, their analysis found the news was driven by isolated incidents of crime and violence and focused on the emotional and physical impacts of individual victims and their families. They also found that law enforcement voices were the most quoted. And solutions were largely absent from the coverage.
For community gun violence, researchers found that community-level violence and police shootings dominate coverage. Those stories also use language that framed the victims and perpetrators of violence as menacing, threatening or beyond help. Those stories occasionally quoted people with lived experience.
Stories about domestic violence involving firearms didn’t appear as often as stories about community violence. Domestic violence coverage often included quotes from an advocacy group, mental health professionals and/or researchers who provided larger context. But they also found that coverage sometimes emphasized individual choice, reinforced blame and stigma or cast doubt on survivors’ stories.
Firearm suicide stories appeared the least frequently. Stories were more likely to “expand the frame” and include contextual factors like income inequality or poor access to mental health care. Those stories also quoted researchers or mental health providers more than stories about other issues related to firearms. But their findings also determined that one-fifth of articles about suicide included explicit details about how the person died.
Solution stories
The guide also identified community-led prevention strategies that also offer good story ideas on gun violence:
- Collect and share “highly localized” data. Existing data sets are often limited to injuries or fatalities at a county, state or regional level. Those figures can leave out trends in domestic violence, community violence and firearm suicide. The guide shares examples of what local data collection looks like:
- Community violence intervention leaders can use hyperlocal data collection on firearm homicides and assaults to tailor interventions.
- Firearm suicide prevention advocates can make an asset map of voluntary firearm safe storage sites in their community for those in crisis.
- Advocates for domestic violence survivors can use accurate local data to show how prevalent domestic violence-related firearm homicides are compared to other firearm homicides.
- Creating sustained support for those most at risk of harm. This could mean community violence intervention programs that engage people who have been shot to reduce future violence. In terms of firearm suicide prevention, support looks like working with families, friends and loved ones to spread awareness on safe gun storage. Another example is training survivors of domestic violence to talk about firearm access and associated risks.
Additional resources
These reporting guides are also useful for learning how to responsibly cover firearm suicide and related issues:
