Dateline Parkland : transmedia news and student activism from an American mass shooting

Media, and technology are ever evolving, and storytelling and journalism are not exceptions to the effects of these constant changes. Among them is the evolution of journalism into a transmedia phenomenon. No longer passive a consumer of news, the public assembles knowledge of news events from multiple sources and perspectives, shares it, and acts on it in ways not seen in the analog age. This study evaluates a sample of the news stories published following the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas (MSD) High School in Parkland, Florida, as a snapshot of the wider coverage of the event. Henry Jenkins’ seven principles of transmedia storytelling served as the lens of analysis for looking at the MSD shooting content. This study demonstrates that, despite any form of centralized planning, coverage of the shooting matched the definition of transmedia storytelling.