Media Salience and the Process of Framing: Coverage of the Columbine School Shootings

Abstract

This study examines how the media can build a news event's salience by emphasizing different aspects of the event during its life span. A two-dimensional measurement scheme is proposed as a systematic way of examining media frames. This scheme yields cross-issue generalizability that liberates framing research from issue-specific boundaries. A content analysis examining the coverage of the Columbine school shootings in the New York Times documents the use of multiple frames on the time and space dimensions, visualizes framing as a process over time, and identifies certain frame-changing patterns in the coverage of this highly salient news event.