Mass shootingsMass Shootings as a Contagion
Research shows that mass-shooting incidents usually occur in clusters and tend to be contagious. Moreover, contagion correlates with the level of intensity of media coverage: the more intense the coverage, the more likely it is that contagion will occur, researchers say.
Research shows that mass-shooting incidents usually occur in clusters and tend to be contagious. Moreover, contagion correlates with the level of intensity of media coverage: the more intense the coverage, the more likely it is that contagion will occur, researchers say.
Back in 2014 and 2015, researchers at Arizona State University analyzed data on cases of mass violence. They included USA Today’s data on mass killings (defined as four or more people killed using any means, including guns) from 2006 to 2013, data on school shootings between 1998 and 2013, and mass shootings (defined as incidents in which three people were shot, not necessarily killed) between 2005 and 2013 collected by the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.
ASU professor Sherry Towers and her colleagues also found that what set apart shootings that were contagious was the amount of media coverage they received. “In the incidences where there were four or more people killed, and even school shootings, those tended to get national and even international media attention,” Towers told NPR’s “All Things Considered.”
She also found that there is a window when a shooting is most likely to lead to more incidents — about two weeks. Towers and her team published their results in 2015.
Jillian Peterson, a criminologist at Hamline University in Minnesota and founder of the nonpartisan think tank, The Violence Project, told NPR that mass-shooting contagion is similar to suicide contagion, with a high-profile suicide, which is intensely covered by the media, leading more people to take their own lives. For example, following the suicide of actor Robin Williams, researchers documented a 10 percent spike in suicides in the months following his death.
Researchers who interviewed mass shooters who survived their attacks, and analyzed the social media postings of mass shooters who killed themselves or who were killed by the police, concluded that about “about 80 percent were actively suicidal prior to the shooting,” Petersen says.
