Stop Making Murderers Famous

Thought this media-innovative community might be interested in this media criticism.

I released this during the spree of mass shootings last year. In the grand scheme of things, these shootings kill very few people but get a disproportionate amount of media coverage, and inspire more atrocities. The media has created this cycle with whether it's terrorism, white supremacy, or being outrageous to capitalize on clicks + shares + ad dollars... doing something awful prompts this wave of media coverage that in a perverse way furthers the cause of people who deserve no attention.

Does the mass population truly benefit from such fettishization of these stories, or does it create even more outrage and violence?

"Research conducted at Arizona State University found "that killings that receive national or international media attention do indeed inspire similar events a significant fraction of the time."

"The researchers did a statistical analysis of 176 mass shooting events in the U.S. from 2006 to 2011 and 220 school shootings between 1997 and 2013. They discovered that mass shootings were significantly more likely to occur if another shooting that received national media coverage took place in the previous 13 days -- a finding that suggests that mass shootings tend to cluster together in a similar manner to suicides."

After studying 160 “active shooter” events over the past decade, with access to information beyond what the public knows, Andre Simons, of the F.B.I.’s Behavioral Analysis Unit, concluded that “the copycat phenomenon is real.” When the F.B.I. report summarizing the research was released in 2014, he said: “We think we’re seeing more compromised, marginalized individuals who are seeking inspiration from those past attacks.” — Source: NY Times

Links, more info, and potential action at www.nonfamous.org

Desktop version of same video here: