Mental Illness, the Media, and the Moral Politics of Mass Violence

• Author: Scott W. Duxbury,Laura C. Frizzell,Sadé L. Lindsay
• Date: 01 November 2018
• Published date: 01 November 2018
• DOI: 10.1177/0022427818787225
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Mental Illness, the

Media, and the

Moral Politics of Mass

Violence: The Role

of Race in Mass

Shootings Coverage

Scott W. Duxbury

1

, Laura C. Frizzell

1

,

and Sade

´L. Lindsay

1

Abstract

Objectives: We examine how news media portrays the causes of mass shoot-

ings for shooters of different races. Specifically, we explore whether White

men are disproportionately framed as mentally ill, and what narratives

media tend to invoke when covering mass shootings through the lens of

mental illness as opposed to other explanatory frames. Methods: The study

examines a unique data set of 433 news documents covering 219 mass

shootings between January 1, 2013, and December 31, 2015. It analyzes

the data using a mixed methods approach, combining logistic regression

with content analysis. Results: Quantitative findings show that Whites and

Latinos are more likely to have their crime attributed to mental illness than

Blacks. Qualitative findings show that rhetoric within these discussions

frame White men as sympathetic characters, while Black and Latino men

1

Department of Sociology, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA

Corresponding Author:

Scott W. Duxbury, Department of Sociology, The Ohio State University, 238 Townshend Hall,

1885 Neil Avenue Mall, Columbus, OH 43202, USA.

Email: duxbury.5@osu.edu

Journal of Research in Crime and

Delinquency

2018, Vol. 55(6) 766-797

ªThe Author(s) 2018

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DOI: 10.1177/0022427818787225

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are treated as perpetually violent threats to the public. Conclusions: Results

suggest that there is racial variability in how the media assign blame to mass

shooters. While Black men and Latinos are cast as violently inclined, White

men are treated as victims or sympathetic characters. Results also indicate

that there are noteworthy differences in how blame is assigned to Black

men and Latinos.

Keywords

media, race or ethnicity, moral panics, mass shootings, mental health

Media coverage frequently circulates negative stereotypes of racial mino-

rities during moral panics about crime (Carlson 2016; Cohen 2011; Collins

1999; Feagin 2006; Garland 2008). Moral panic refers to public concern

about a social problem disproportionate to its actual impact, typically per-

taining to a perceived threat to social or moral order (Cohen 2002). Moral

panics often arise as a response to a “folk devil”: a cultural, racial, or ethnic

group whose behavior is perceived as responsible for the social problem

causing moral panic. Folk devils are established when a group is blamed for

a social problem, usually by circulating negative stereotypes and exagger-

ated claims about the groups’ behaviors through media coverage (Cohen

1976:1). For example, media coverage of crime uses coded language (e.g.,

“thug” and “gangbanger”) and deploys imagery of Black and Latino offen-

ders, conflating crime with Black and Latino men (Chiricos, Welch, and

Gertz 2004; Russell 1998; Surette [1990] 2010). Consequently, crime news

coverage often casts Blacks and Latinos as racial folk devils amid moral

panic surrounding crime.

While the racialization of folk devils through news coverage has long

been recognized as a key component of many moral panics surrounding

crime (Carlson 2016; Cohen 2011; Collins 1999; Critcher 2003; Goode and

Ben-Yehuda 1994), little research has examined the role of whiteness in

media coverage of mass violence. This is a surprising omission. Since the

Columbine massacre, mass shootings have spurred much moral panic in the

United States (Cohen 2002), as they are the most common and widely

covered form of mass violence (Duwe 2000, 2004; Fox and DeLateur

2014; Fox and Levin 2003). Further, academic and public coverage of mass

shootings focuses on events with young White perpetrators, and the domi-

nant narrative for the causes of mass shootings has fixated overwhelmingly

on shooters’ mental health (Fox and DeLateur 2014; Fox and Fridel 2016;

Duxbury et al. 767

Newman et al. 2004). Yet, while moral panics surrounding crime typically

establish a racial folk devil, moral panic surrounding mass shootings—a

uniquely egregious form of violent crime—has not established White men

as a racial folk devil, instead focusing on individual perpetrators’ mental

health (Fox and DeLateur 2014; Fox and Fridel 2016; Newman et al. 2004).

This empirical incongruence raises a broad question pertinent to research on

moral panics and racialization in crime news coverage: What social pro-

cesses inhibit the creation of a racialized White folk devil?

Research examining this question is germane to understanding the racia-

lization of crime news coverage and moral panics surrounding crime. As

Hier and others (2002, 2008) argue (Hall et al. 1978), perceptions of culp-

ability for social problems are closely linked to extant social hierarchies.

Assigning blame for a social problem to a folk devil can serve to justify the

marginalization of disenfranchised groups (Cohen 1976, 2002; Goode and

Ben-Yehuda 1994; Hall et al. 1978; Hier 2008) or, in the case of crime news

coverage, perpetuate problematic perceptions of race and criminality (Col-

lins 1999; Critcher 2003; Russell 1998; Surette [1990] 2010). Thus, explor-

ing how blame is assigned to offenders of different races in media coverage

of mass violence offers a novel contribution to research on moral panics and

crime news coverage by identifying whether and how blame is diverted

from a privileged social group—in this case, White men—when they are

implicated in a moral panic.

In this article, we seek to answer three empirical questions that bear

directly on the theoretical question raised above: Does race affect how the

media frame the causes of mass violence? How is blame assigned to perpe-

trators in media coverage of mass violence? And, what narratives undergird

this blame assignment? To address these questions, we focus on the case of

mental illness in media coverage of mass shootings. Although mass shoot-

ings are not a routine form of crime, exceptional events are often theoreti-

cally generative because they offer an ideal-typical case to study certain

social processes (Burawoy 1998). Moreover, while mass shootings are rare,

moral panic surrounding mass shootings has been widespread for decades

(Cohen 2002; Goode and Ben-Yehuda 1994), representing a common or

“routinized” moral panic. Within the context of mass shootings coverage,

mental illness narratives are a theoretically generative lens through which to

examine racialization and blame assignment. Mental illness has emerged as

a dominant media narrative for extreme gun violence in recent years (Fox

and DeLateur 2014; McGinty et al. 2014); yet, research highlights that there

are racial differences in how mental illness is assigned, both formally

through diagnosis and informally through discourse (Conrad 2007; Hansen

768 Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 55(6)