Media coverage and firearm acquisition in the aftermath of a mass shooting
Media coverage and firearm acquisition in the aftermath of a mass shooting
复制标题
DOI：
10.1038/s41562-019-0636-0
复制
发表时间：
2019-09-01
影响因子：
29.9
通讯作者：
Sipahi, Rifat
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Porfiri, Maurizio;Sattanapalle, Raghu Ram;Sipahi, Rifat
美国正在经历大规模枪击事件，其频率令人震惊，这往往会导致公众对枪支控制的激烈辩论。此类事件是否在最近枪支普及率大幅上升中发挥了任何作用仍是一个悬而未决的问题。本研究采用信息论框架，分析大规模枪击事件的发生、媒体对枪支管制政策的报道以及国家和州两级的枪支购置之间的复杂相互作用。通过对1999年至2017年的时间序列的分析，我们确定了大规模枪击事件的发生与枪支购买量增长率之间的相关性。更重要的是，传递熵分析将媒体对枪支管制政策的报道定位为维纳-格兰杰意义上的潜在因果联系，建立了这种联系。我们的结果表明，媒体报道可能会增加公众对更严格的枪支管制的担忧，并在一定程度上推动枪支普及率的上升。
With an alarming frequency, the United States is experiencing mass shooting events, which often result in heated public debates on firearm control. Whether such events play any role in recent dramatic increases in firearm prevalence remains an open question. This study adopts an information-theoretic framework to analyse the complex interplay between the occurrence of a mass shooting, media coverage on firearm control policies and firearm acquisition at both national and state levels. Through the analysis of time series from 1999 to 2017, we identify a correlation between the occurrence of a mass shooting and the rate of growth in firearm acquisition. More importantly, a transfer entropy analysis pinpoints media coverage on firearm control policies as a potential causal link in a Wiener-Granger sense that establishes this correlation. Our results demonstrate that media coverage may increase public worry about more stringent firearm control and partially drive increases in firearm prevalence.