Skip to main navigation Skip to search Skip to main content

Tweeting mass shootings: The dynamics of issue attention on social media

  • Yini Zhang
  • , Jiyoun Suk
  • , Yidong Wang
  • , Devin Conathan
  • , Jordan Foley

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

3 Scopus citations

Abstract

Mass shootings in the United States have gained public attention in the past decade and have elicited heated debate over firearm regulations. Meanwhile, social media outlets like Twitter have become a central platform for such attention. In this paper, we propose to detect patterns of issue attention on mass shootings by tracing the volume of relevant tweets. We compiled two datasets using both traditional and computational methods. One dataset is of mass shooting events, and the other is of tweets about mass shootings on Twitter. Our focus is twofold, as we conceptualize social media discourse as both an indicator and a construction of issue attention. First, we examine the longitudinal trend of issue attention in association to mass shooting events. Second, we deconstruct the issue attention into discursive themes and check the variation among those themes. We explore how mass shooting event features affect the ebbs and flows of issue attention.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publication8th International Conference on Social Media and Society
Subtitle of host publicationSocial Media for Good or Evil, #SMSociety 2017
PublisherAssociation for Computing Machinery
ISBN (Electronic)9781450348478
DOIs
StatePublished - Jul 28 2017
Event8th International International Conference on Social Media and Society, #SMSociety 2017 - Toronto, Canada
Duration: Jul 28 2017Jul 30 2017

Publication series

NameACM International Conference Proceeding Series
VolumePart F129683

Conference

Conference8th International International Conference on Social Media and Society, #SMSociety 2017
Country/TerritoryCanada
CityToronto
Period07/28/1707/30/17

Keywords

  • Computational Method
  • Issue Attention
  • Mass Shooting
  • Social Media

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Tweeting mass shootings: The dynamics of issue attention on social media'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this