It’s Not Just “8 Dead”: Examining News and Twitter’s Social Construction of the Atlanta Spa Shootings Through the Lens of Networked Gatekeeping and Affective Publics

IF 5.5 1区文学 Q1 COMMUNICATION

Social Media + Society Pub Date : 2024-08-12 DOI:10.1177/20563051241269278

Gyo Hyun Koo, Bin Chen

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Drawing from the theories of networked gatekeeping and affective publics, this study compares how news media and social media users shaped the discourse surrounding the 2021 Atlanta spa shootings. We investigate both the substantive (topics) and affective (emotions) dimensions of news articles and tweets, showcasing how institutional media and the public engage in the social construction of mass shootings involving people of underserved communities. To do so, we built two datasets: 964 news articles and 265,951 tweets. The findings from the computer-assisted content analysis reveal that Twitter users focused more on humanizing the victims and contextualizing the Atlanta spa shootings within the broader framework of anti-Asian racism, in contrast to the news outlets. Twitter users expressed significantly greater anger and fear than what is reflected in the news articles. This study also demonstrates that the news stories failed to acknowledge the intersecting identities of the victims. The findings contribute to our understanding of how journalists and individuals shape agendas and convey their affective reactions through news and social media. We suggest actions that can be taken to create a more inclusive and culturally responsive media environment.

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不仅仅是 "8 人死亡"：从网络把关和情感公众的角度审视新闻和推特对亚特兰大温泉枪击案的社会建构

本研究借鉴网络把关和情感公共理论，比较了新闻媒体和社交媒体用户如何塑造 2021 年亚特兰大温泉枪击案的相关言论。我们调查了新闻文章和推文的实质（主题）和情感（情绪）两个维度，展示了机构媒体和公众是如何参与涉及弱势群体的大规模枪击事件的社会建构的。为此，我们建立了两个数据集：964 篇新闻文章和 265,951 条微博。计算机辅助内容分析的结果显示，与新闻机构相比，Twitter 用户更注重将受害者人性化，并将亚特兰大水疗中心枪击案置于更广泛的反亚裔种族主义框架内。推特用户所表达的愤怒和恐惧明显高于新闻报道。本研究还表明，新闻报道未能承认受害者的交叉身份。研究结果有助于我们理解新闻记者和个人如何通过新闻和社交媒体形成议程并传达他们的情感反应。我们建议采取一些行动，以创造一个更具包容性和文化敏感性的媒体环境。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Social Media + Society COMMUNICATION-

CiteScore

9.20

自引率

3.80%

发文量

111

审稿时长

12 weeks

期刊介绍： Social Media + Society is an open access, peer-reviewed scholarly journal that focuses on the socio-cultural, political, psychological, historical, economic, legal and policy dimensions of social media in societies past, contemporary and future. We publish interdisciplinary work that draws from the social sciences, humanities and computational social sciences, reaches out to the arts and natural sciences, and we endorse mixed methods and methodologies. The journal is open to a diversity of theoretic paradigms and methodologies. The editorial vision of Social Media + Society draws inspiration from research on social media to outline a field of study poised to reflexively grow as social technologies evolve. We foster the open access of sharing of research on the social properties of media, as they manifest themselves through the uses people make of networked platforms past and present, digital and non. The journal presents a collaborative, open, and shared space, dedicated exclusively to the study of social media and their implications for societies. It facilitates state-of-the-art research on cutting-edge trends and allows scholars to focus and track trends specific to this field of study.