Originally posted by DinoDoc
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Eh, we had two crazed gunmen in one week and "shots fired" at a LA Mall on Saturday.
By the way, There's a line of thought that suggests that mass-media saturation of these sort of things induces copycats in the short term. Since Friday the news cycle has been fixated on the shooting and gun control.
One such guy who thinks this
"He takes an equally severe attitude to news shows. Twice, he appeared on CNN in the middle of a sensational murder case and warned the network that if it didn't tone down their coverage it would lead to further crimes. On another occasion, he told a production team from 20/20, a magazine show on ABC, that he would not participate in a programme reconstructing a workplace shooting because he feared their approach would encourage copycats. The programme went out on a Friday; by the following Tuesday there had been two fresh mass murders in other parts of the United States.
"Here's my hypothesis," he said. "Saturation-level news coverage of mass murder causes, on average, one more mass murder in the next two weeks." The reason, he says, has something to do with the USA's size. In a country so large the likelihood of one or two people snapping becomes quite high.
"It's not that the news coverage made the person paranoid, or armed, or suicidally depressed," Dietz said. "But you've got to imagine this small number of people sitting at home, with guns on their lap and a hit list in their mind. They feel willing to die. When they watch the coverage of a school shooting or a workplace mass murder, it only takes one or two of them to say - 'that guy is just like me, that's the solution to my problem, that's what I'll do tomorrow'. The point is that the media coverage moves them a little closer to the action.
"Is that causation? Legally, maybe not. Epidemiologically, yes," he said."
"Here's my hypothesis," he said. "Saturation-level news coverage of mass murder causes, on average, one more mass murder in the next two weeks." The reason, he says, has something to do with the USA's size. In a country so large the likelihood of one or two people snapping becomes quite high.
"It's not that the news coverage made the person paranoid, or armed, or suicidally depressed," Dietz said. "But you've got to imagine this small number of people sitting at home, with guns on their lap and a hit list in their mind. They feel willing to die. When they watch the coverage of a school shooting or a workplace mass murder, it only takes one or two of them to say - 'that guy is just like me, that's the solution to my problem, that's what I'll do tomorrow'. The point is that the media coverage moves them a little closer to the action.
"Is that causation? Legally, maybe not. Epidemiologically, yes," he said."
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