The differential newsworthiness of lethal police shootings: A conjunctive analysis of the contextual factors underlying incidents with low and high media coverage

• In Event: New Directions In Conjunctive Analysis of Case Configurations (CACC) II

Abstract

Using a stratified sample of 300 lethal police shootings in the U.S. compiled by the Washington Post (2016), the current study examines the prevalence and longevity of newspaper coverage of these incidents. Conjunctive analysis is used to identify (1) the joint influences of various contextual factors (e.g., race/ethnicity of decedent, news factors [e.g., novelty/atypicality, public threat, timeliness, proximity, socio-legal impact]) on the differential news coverage of these lethal shootings and (2) the unique signatures that are found among the most “high profile” lethal incidents. The results of this study are discussed in terms of their implications for future research on the use of conjunctive analysis and the social construction of news accounts of deadly police-citizen encounters.

Authors

• Terance D. Miethe, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

• Olesya Venger, University of Nevada, Las Vegas