PROJECT
SUMMARY
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Community firearm violence (CFV), defined as fatal and non-fatal shootings that result from interpersonal
violence, disproportionately impacts people from structurally marginalized racial groups and occurs
predominantly in communities where racist policies have resulted in systemic disinvestment. News media play
a crucial role in shaping how the public and policy makers understand and respond to health threats, including
firearm violence. Media typically present CFV through episodic crime reports, focused on single shooting events
that depict violence as a “crime” issue, which can lead audiences to blame victims, reinforce racist stereotypes,
and undermine public health responses. Our preliminary study with firearm-injured people identified that episodic
crime narratives of their shootings felt dehumanizing to them and added to their trauma. Despite emerging
research indicating that harmful reporting on CFV is a threat to public health that may further marginalize
impacted people and communities, there is no consensus definition of harmful reporting on CFV, no instruments
to measure harmful reporting on CFV, and no existing research on racial and spatial disparities in harmful
reporting on CFV. These disparities are important to uncover, because if present, then modifying media
approaches to limit harmful reporting is a potential target for mitigating structural racism, minimizing disparities
in CFV incidence, and for CFV prevention. Past experience with suicide reporting indicates that when evidence-
based journalistic guidelines are implemented, they can reduce harmful reporting, prevent suicide, and have a
positive impact on public health. The proposed research will reduce existing gaps in scientific knowledge and
contribute evidence to inform development of journalistic guidelines for reporting on CFV through the following
specific aims: (1) Define harmful reporting on CFV. We will identify media approaches that are potentially harmful
using the Delphi technique to achieve consensus among stakeholders identified in collaboration with partners at
a community-based organization. (2) Develop and pilot a novel instrument to measure harmful reporting on CFV.
We will measure the frequency and severity of harmful reporting elements identified in Aim 1 through iterative
codebook development and content analysis of an existing dataset of Philadelphia television (TV) news coverage
of CFV. (3) Evaluate racial and spatial disparities in harmful reporting on CFV. We will examine associations
between shooting victim demographics, shooting location characteristics, and measures of harmful reporting.
We hypothesize that TV news reports of firearm-injured young Black men who are shot in census block groups
with more disadvantaged residents will contain more harmful elements than reports of other firearm-injured
people and places. Consistent with the strategic goals of the NIMHD, this study will be the first to define and
measure disparities in harmful reporting on CFV. We will establish the groundwork for a future R01 multi-city
study to examine direct associations between harmful reporting and the incidence of CFV and to develop and
test media approaches that minimize disparities in reporting and support public health responses to CFV.