Patterns of Bias: How Mainstream Media Operationalize Links between Mass Shootings and Terrorism

Abstract

ABSTRACT How do race and/or religion shape news media coverage of mass shooters and whether media associate mass shooters with terrorism? This article combines natural language processing (NLP), statistical analysis of U.S. mass shooting events (1990–2016) and an in-depth case-study comparison to evaluate whether media exhibit patterns in how they frame mass shooters from different racial and/or religious groups. First, we use NLP to target and model the specific adjectives media use to describe mass shooters. We find identifiable text patterns in the adjectives media apply to mass shooters that vary along racial/religious lines. Second, we statistically estimate disagreement between established definitions of terrorism and media associations with the term “terrorism” (excluding negations). This analysis suggests that media disproportionately fail to link non-Muslim white perpetrators to events that should properly be considered terrorism. Our in-depth case-study comparison reinforces and contextualizes these results. This research provides scientific evidence to support the increasingly prominent public speculation that U.S. institutions insufficiently acknowledge the threat of white-perpetrated terrorism. We suggest that biased media coverage reflects and contributes to a process by which certain identity groups are framed as outsiders.