Media salience and the process of framing: Coverage of the Columbine school shootings
Hsiang Iris Chyi & Max McCombs
Chyi, H. I. & McCombs, M. (2004). Media salience and the process of framing: Coverage of the Columbine school shootings. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 81(1), 22-35.
Abstract
This study examines how the media can build a news event’s salience by emphasizing different aspects of the event during its life span. A two-dimensional measurement scheme is proposed as a systematic way of examining media frames. This scheme yields cross-issue generalizability that liberates framing research from issue-specific boundaries. A content analysis examining the coverage of the Columbine school shootings in The New York Times documented the use of multiple frames on the time and space dimensions, visualized framing as a process over time, and identified certain frame-changing patterns in the coverage of this highly salient news event.
