RACIALIZATION OF THE VIRGINIA TECH SHOOTINGS

Abstract

This study investigated differences between how local and national newspapers framed race in their coverage of the 2007 Virginia Tech (VT) shootings. The results showed a local newspaper, with geographic and social ties to the VT community, published more stories about the shootings than did national newspapers and continued to publish articles well after the national newspapers had stopped. Further, national newspapers mentioned the shooter's race more often than did the local newspaper, despite having published fewer articles. The results also showed that national newspapers racialized the shooter more often and more prominently than did the local newspaper, but that the two newspaper types did not differ according to the levels of racialization each used (i.e., attributing the crime to the shooter himself rather than attributing it to his race), according to how racialized discussion of the shooting was, or in their use of implicit racialization.