#nonamenofame
How the media affects mass shootings
​​The American Psychological Association points out that this “fame” is something that many mass shooters desire.
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The psyche of a mass shooter
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Research has found that a significant number of mass shooters may have large egos and narcissistic tendencies.
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FBI lists narcissism as a risk factor for school shooters.
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It is included as one of the seven most important risk factors for school shootings.
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Mass killers commit premeditated acts of mass murder often after they have “externalized blame” and failed to take responsibility for what has gone wrong in their lives
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Their crimes are often preceded by major ego threats that would be infuriating for narcissists
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One of the catalysts for mass murder is often the offender's “humiliating loss of face” like being fired, suspended from school, broken up with, or struggling with something else
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Examples:
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Some shooters have actually been diagnosed
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Simon's Rock college shooter - his disorder gave him an “over-inflated image of his own importance”
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Many mass shooters have made explicitly narcissistic statements
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Columbine: “book of god"- viewed themselves as god-like
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University of California Santa Barbara shooter in a video refers to himself as the “perfect guy," “superior one," “true alpha male," “god."
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Fame and notoriety
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The glorification of mass shooters in the media can inspire a copycat shooting, where the potential shooter typically tries to kill more people than their predecessor.
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Some mass shooters use the media to gain notoriety from their attacks.
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The 2007 Virginia Tech shooter paused his killing spree to mail photos of himself to NBC news
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The 2014 Isla Vista shooter posted a manifesto on Youtube before he began killing
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They really do gain fame
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Dr. Adam Lankford found in his study that between 2010 and 2017, some mass shooters got more media attention in the month following the attack than most famous celebrities, such as Brad Pitt.
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Lankford also studied 24 mass shooters who openly admitted they wanted fame or contacted the media directly to get it.
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Many mass shooters had narcissistic personalities that crave fame and attention.
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Mass shooters being named in the media
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There is a direct link between the attention-seeking desire of many narcissists and the attention-granting rewards offered by media coverage of their behavior.​
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The media provides the perfect stage for narcissistics to become famous through extreme acts of violence.
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One of the Columbine killers said, “I want to leave a lasting impression on the world.”
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He also thought that directors such as Tarantino and Spielberg would be fighting over the rights to make a movie about their acts.
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The Virginia Tech gunman - “the vendetta you have witnessed today will reverberate throughout every home and every soul in America.”
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Norwegian gunman practiced extensively for the possible interviews he might do following the attacks.
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He even went as far as to hire an organization to cleanse his online profiles of him after the shooting so his image would be preserved.
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Many mass shooters write manifestos hoping they get published in the media afterward.
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Media Contagion Effect
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Sherry Towers, a physicist at Arizona State University, found evidence that killings that receive national or international media attention inspire similar events a significant fraction of the time.
- ​"In mass killings (four or more people killed), where the tragedies usually get national or international media attention, we saw significant evidence of this kind of unusual bunching. In mass shootings — with less than four people killed, but at least three people shot — we didn't see any evidence of unusual bunching."
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​Other studies indicate that the more media attention a shooter gets the more likely the event will inspire a future mass shooter.
- A 2015 study found that after a mass shooting there was an increased chance of another one occurring in the next 13 days.
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A 2017 study found that media coverage of a mass shooting may increase the frequency and lethality of future shootings for much longer than two weeks.​
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Sources:
https://www.center4research.org/copy-cats-kill/
https://news.asu.edu/20151005-contagion-effect-mass-shootings
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-human-equation/202107/the-psychology-copycat-killers
https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/reports/mass-shooting
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/320817538_Narcissism_Fame_Seeking_and_Mass_Shootings
file://DontNameThemDontShowThem-LankfordMadfis2018.pdf
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