Media salience and the process of framing: Coverage of the columbine school shootings

This study examines how the media call build a news event's salience by emphasizing different aspects of the event during its life span. A two-dimensional measurement scheme is proposed as a systematic way of examining media frames. This scheme yields cross-issue generalizability that liberates framing research from issue-specific boundaries. A content analysis examining the coverage of the Columbine school shootings in the New York Times documents the use of multiple frames on the time and space dimensions, visualizes framing as a process over time, and identifies; certain frame-changing patterns in the coverage of this highly salient news event.