What Do We Talk about When We Talk about Guns?

• In Event: 21054 - Media

Abstract

Guns are potent cultural objects in the United States, a fact that has spurred much recent research. Much of that work centers the beliefs, discourses, and actions of gun enthusiasts. Less understood are the cultural dimensions of guns in the wider population, where gun owners are in the minority. This paper considers the cultural life of guns by studying the language used to depict them in a prominent US mass media outlet over four decades. We use structural topic modelling to describe the New York Times’ coverage of guns from 1980 to 2019. The analysis reveals that the coverage centers danger and the societal responses to it, albeit in different ways over time. Whereas local street violence and criminal punishment dominated the coverage during much of the time period, high-profile mass shootings and efforts at federal legislation have become more salient in recent years. In examining depictions of guns in mass media, the paper contributes to a growing body of literature that seeks to understand the cultural life of guns in US society.

Authors

• Brett C. Burkhardt, Oregon State University

• Aimee Dinnin Huff, Oregon State University