The influence of audience: Analyzing the relationship between post-Sandy Hook newspaper coverage and readers’ positions on gun policy
Abstract
The Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut took place on December
14, 2012. Sandy Hook prompted President Barack Obama to issue 23 executive orders
related to gun policy in early 2013. Newspapers throughout the country covered the
policy changes and the Sandy Hook shooting in various ways. In the 90 days after Sandy
Hook, 30 randomly selected newspapers published 1,017 articles mentioning guns in
the context of the shooting. Fifteen newspapers were more likely to use gun control
to characterize the shooting, fourteen were more likely to use gun rights, and one
newspaper was evenly split in its use of gun control and gun rights. Newspapers also
varied in the percentage of their total articles that mentioned guns in the context
of Sandy Hook. Newspapers that published a larger percentage of their overall articles
that mentioned guns in the context of Sandy Hook were more likely to frame the event
with gun control. These newspaper articles were also examined using audience demand
theory, which posits that demand may shape the way newspapers cover issues. Specifically,
demand for gun rights newspaper coverage was measured using the number of donations
to the National Rifle Association Political Action Committee. This number of NRA PAC
donations per population in a given area slightly positively related with greater
use of gun rights frames, and slightly negatively related with greater use of gun
control frames, but these relationships were not statistically significant. This project
suggests that audience demand theory can be applied to newspaper coverage of guns.
Description
Honors thesis for Public Policy Studies
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Honors thesisDepartment
Public Policy StudiesPermalink
https://hdl.handle.net/10161/8298Citation
Koelsch, Anna (2014). The influence of audience: Analyzing the relationship between post-Sandy Hook newspaper
coverage and readers’ positions on gun policy. Honors thesis, Duke University. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/8298.Collections
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