Public health framing of firearm violence on local television news in Philadelphia, PA, USA: a quantitative content analysis

Community firearm violence, defined as fatal (e.g. firearm homicide) and non-fatal shootings that result from interpersonal violence, is an increasing threat to public health in the United States (US) [1]. In 2021, 20,996 people died from firearm homicide in the US, the highest recorded number of deaths since 1993 [2]. For each firearm homicide, there are at least two people who are non-fatally shot [3]. People who survive firearm injury often live with significant physical and psychological disability, and exposure to community firearm violence has far reaching community-level and societal consequences beyond individual gunshot wounds [4].

News media, including television, radio, print, and online platforms, play an influential role in shaping how the public and policy makers understand and respond to health threats, including firearm violence [5‐10]. People with little to no direct experience with community firearm violence likely draw on information from news and other types of media to form their understanding of the issue. Therefore, the manner in which news stories depict a shooting incident can influence the attitudes of news audiences towards this public health problem [11‐13]. This process can be understood through framing theory, which posits that news reporting inevitably emphasizes certain aspects of a news event at the expense of others, resulting in specific narratives that are likely to be adopted by news audiences and shape their views [11‐13]. In other words, journalists’ decisions about what to cover, what details to include or exclude, which voices to highlight or pass over, and how to arrange the information will all affect how salient these elements are to news consumers [11‐13].

One reason that community firearm violence is not more widely recognized as a public health problem may be that violence is rarely presented, or framed as a public health problem in US news [5, 7‐9, 14]. Instead, news reports depict violence almost exclusively as a crime issue [8, 15‐18]. For decades, crime stories have been a central feature of US news, dominating headlines and leading newscasts, because they are considered more newsworthy and attention-grabbing than other types of events [17, 18]. Research indicates that news coverage of crime and violence relies almost entirely on police sources and rarely includes the perspectives of victims [8, 15, 16, 19]. Additionally, news stories typically present violence to the public using episodic framing, when a story focuses on a single incident in isolation, as opposed to employing thematic framing, in which a news report explores the broader social and structural context in which violence occurs [5, 8, 9, 14]. Episodic crime reporting is the intersection of news framing that is episodic, defines violence as a crime issue, and privileges police narrators above other perspectives. Studies indicate that episodic crime reports on violence can lead audiences to blame victims, reinforce racist stereotypes about the people and places impacted, suggest an unfounded efficacy to policing as a means to prevent violence, and in turn, undermine effective public health responses [5, 7‐9, 14, 16, 20‐22]. When law enforcement officials are regularly presented as primary sources in stories on violence, news audiences have been shown to adopt normative news narratives, which prioritize expert opinions and eyewitness testimony of those beholden to state interests (e.g. police, politicians) over those most affected by the news event [11‐13, 16, 21]. For decades, scholars have urged journalists to stop framing firearm violence predominantly as a crime issue and start covering it as a public health issue, but these calls have largely been unheeded [8, 14, 23, 24].

A recent study revealed that these patterns in how firearm violence is framed in most US news stories can have detrimental effects not just on general audiences but also on the survivors of firearm violence themselves [25]. In a qualitative interview study, firearm-injured people relayed that episodic crime narratives in news reports of their shootings that neglected their personal perspectives felt dehumanizing and compounded their trauma [25]. Firearm-injured people in this study also described how other harmful news elements, including graphic content, inaccuracies, and mention of treating hospital resulted in distress, harm to their reputation, and threats to personal safety [25].

While the literature on the negative impacts of episodic crime framing of violence is robust, examinations of the content of news reporting on firearm violence specifically are relatively few [6, 7, 9, 10]. To date, there have been no studies which measure harmful media reporting on firearm violence, and to our knowledge, the framing of firearm violence on television news has not been examined since the 1990s [8]. There is a critical need to fill these gaps in knowledge to better understand how firearm violence is represented to the public and, in turn, how news might be shaping public opinion during this significant surge in community firearm violence in the US [26‐28]. Therefore, the aims of this quantitative content analysis of local television news reports on firearm violence in Philadelphia are: (1) To determine the extent to which firearm violence is framed as a public health problem and (2) To quantify harmful news content on firearm violence as identified by firearm-injured people.

Descriptive characteristics of the television news stories are presented in Table 1. Of the 192 clips coded in this study, the majority (68.2%) were local stories of firearm violence in Philadelphia. Nearly 80% of the stories employed episodic framing, and the most common primary narrator apart from the journalist was a law enforcement representative (21.4%). In clips where the journalists were the only narrators featured, 65.1% included police attribution, indicating that police are the predominant source of information in the majority of stories (50.5%) on firearm violence on local television news in Philadelphia. No segments included a health or public health professional or a firearm-injured person as the primary narrator. In fact, no clips featured either of these stakeholders at all, even as secondary narrators. Most of the stories included some police and/or crime scene imagery, and 14 clips (7.3%) included video or audio depiction of the shooting event.

The majority of stories (84.4%) contained at least one harmful element of news content, and the mean harmful content score per clip was 2.6. The most common harmful content elements were visual depiction of the crime scene, lack of follow-up story, no narrators apart from law enforcement, and clinical information about the firearm-injured person (Table 1).

More than 80% of the stories mentioned a specific firearm-injured person (n = 154 clips). Information presented about firearm-injured people in television news stories is summarized in Table 2. In the 192 clips, there were a total of 433 firearm-injured people mentioned, with a mean of 2.8 individuals shot included in each story. Basic demographic information on age, gender, and race was missing for the majority of firearm-injured people mentioned in the segments, and 67.4% of the firearm-injured people included had no personal information presented apart from age and/or gender.

As shown in Table 3, the key elements of a public health frame were absent in the majority of Philadelphia television news stories on firearm violence. For example, data and epidemiologic trends were rarely used to contextualize firearm violence, root causes were mentioned in only 10.9% of segments, public health solutions were rarely discussed (10.4%), the word “prevent” was present in only 5 stories (2.6%), and resources were offered in just 4 clips (2.1%).

Compared to stories with an episodic frame, stories with a thematic frame were less likely to contain harmful content elements identified by firearm-injured people, as indicated in Table 4. Thematic stories were significantly more likely to contain elements of a public health frame, including data and epidemiologic trends, discussion of root causes and solutions, narrators apart from law enforcement, and public health visuals. There was no difference in the mean clip length between episodic and thematic stories on firearm violence on television news in Philadelphia.

The results of this study offer important insights into local television news narratives on firearm violence in Philadelphia during the most significant surge in community firearm violence in US cities since the 1990s. We found that despite decades of evidence of the multilevel harms of episodic crime reports on violence, the majority of television news clips examined in this study contained episodic frames and featured law enforcement as the primary source of information [5, 7‐9, 14, 16, 20‐22]. There was limited humanizing information offered about the people who were shot, and episodic stories contained an average of 3 harmful content elements as identified by firearm-injured people [25]. One of our most significant findings is how rarely a public health perspective on firearm violence was presented. Evidence-based public health solutions to address firearm violence were seldomly featured in television news stories, and only 2% of clips offered resources for firearm violence prevention to news audiences. While thematic stories contained more public health narrators and solutions and less harmful content elements, they were not significantly longer than episodic stories. This finding indicates that thematic stories may be more feasible in the television news context than is traditionally thought by journalists. While it is likely that thematic stories may require more investigation time, increasing thematically framed stories on firearm violence could be an important first step in narrative change to center public health framing of this epidemic. More research is needed to understand how best to effectively engage news audiences with thematic stories that contextualize crime and violence, to ensure that these stories have the desired impact on viewers [20].

There is clear precedent for studies exploring harmful news content to inform journalistic policy development as a public health intervention. With empirical support, journalistic guidelines that provide special instruction to protect victims and audiences in cases of suicide, mass shootings, sexual assault, abuse, and crime involving minors have been widely accepted [38]. For example, research demonstrating that harmful reporting approaches are associated with increases in suicide incidence led to the adoption of revised newsroom practices endorsed by public health experts [39, 40]. These guidelines contain specific harm-reduction recommendations for news organizations, including avoiding: prominent story placement, sensationalizing headline/content, glamorization or oversimplification of suicide, discussing the suicide method, and repeated reporting about the same suicide [40]. They also advocate that journalists use language that is sensitive to the grieving family and provide resources for suicide prevention [40]. When news reports limit certain harmful approaches, portray suicide as preventable, and provide resources, studies have found that suicide rates decrease, a phenomenon called the Papageno Effect [41]. Importantly, no such guidelines crafted by journalists and public health practitioners exist for reporting on community firearm violence. The present study provides an important foundation on which to understand the elements of harm present in current news narratives on firearm violence. This research along with future work examining racial and place-based disparities in harmful reporting on community firearm violence could be used to inform guideline development for ethical reporting on community firearm violence.

Increasingly, professionals who care for and interact with survivors of firearm violence understand the need for trauma-informed approaches [42, 43]. Harmful reporting on community firearm violence that does not include the perspectives of firearm-injured people likely compounds trauma for survivors and co-victims of firearm violence [25]. The preponderance of potentially harmful content elements we found in television news stories about firearm violence indicates an urgent need to provide education to journalists in trauma-informed practices. Trauma-informed reporting on firearm violence would include journalists engaging with survivors using trauma-informed principles to minimize the distress of sharing their experiences and maximize survivors’ control over their injury narratives [44]. This type of reporting could humanize firearm-injured people and build empathy in audiences, deconstructing the existing racialized news narratives around firearm violence in cities. Reporting on community firearm violence that is trauma-informed should also minimize the elements that are known to cause harm to communities and society, including episodic crime frames, graphic visual imagery, and racialized narratives about the people and places impacted [5, 7‐9, 14, 16, 20‐22]. If sensationalized reporting on firearm violence is contributing to negative perceptions of public safety and in turn, increased rates of firearm purchasing as posited by some firearm-injured people, then addressing these harmful elements could actually contribute to firearm violence prevention [25].

Several of this study’s authors are engaged in work with The Philadelphia Center for Gun Violence Reporting (PCGVR), which is a community-based organization working to support ethical reporting on community firearm violence as a public health intervention [45]. Informed by this study and our previous research, PCGVR created and implemented a novel training course for journalists called Gun Violence Prevention Reporting. The goals of this program are to provide journalists with tools to employ trauma-informed practices when interacting with firearm violence survivors and co-victims and to create firearm violence stories that use thematic, solutions-oriented, and public health framing. Future research will include evaluation of the impact of this training program on news content and experiments to test the effects of thematic public health frames in stories on firearm violence on news audiences.

Community firearm violence is an increasing threat to public health in the United States. News reporting plays a critical role in educating audiences about the root causes and solutions to this epidemic. We found that most local television news stories on firearm violence in Philadelphia were episodic crime reports that contained multiple harmful elements as identified by firearm-injured people [25]. Local television news reports rarely framed firearm violence as a public health problem, resulting in innumerable missed opportunities to inform the public and policy makers on evidence-based public health interventions. Public health practitioners should partner with firearm violence survivors to offer alternative perspectives to journalists reporting on firearm violence. Journalists should engage in opportunities for training in trauma-informed reporting practices and solutions journalism. Importantly, newsrooms should adopt a public health approach to reporting on firearm violence that advances the idea that firearm violence is preventable, by offering solutions that are evidence-based, providing resources to audiences, and utilizing the key elements of a public health frame for reporting on firearm violence [8, 20, 23, 24].