American academics say mass shootings are contagious, and the news media's hype about them just encourages copycats.

The picture shows the scene of the shooting at Half Moon Bay Farm in San Francisco, USA, and the police are pulling up the cordon.

(AFP)

[Instant News/Comprehensive Report] Recently, three shootings were reported in California, USA, shocking the whole United States.

According to the research report, similar mass shootings are "contagious", and one shooting often triggers another shooting; the researchers believe that the news media is also one of the culprits, because shootings usually cause media focus on.

According to a report by the US "National Radio" (NPR) on the 24th, Arizona State University researcher Sherry Towers said that mass killings, especially mass killings with at least 4 deaths, are contagious.

It's like the spread of an epidemic. Whenever there is a shooting, it will lead to another shooting.

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Towers and other researchers have also noticed that the prevalence of shootings is actually related to the amount of coverage in the news media.

She said that in the case of mass shootings or school shootings that result in multiple deaths, it usually attracts media attention, which leads to media hype and reporting details about the shooting.

Towers also pointed out that the gunman who committed the shooting in Texas in August 2019 published a manifesto on the Internet, trying to emulate the "shooting at a mosque in New Zealand in March of the same year", and said that he was inspired by this incident. shooting case.

Other researchers who have studied mass shootings have argued that the news media should avoid showing photos of the shooter or focusing too much on the shooter's lived history and motivations.