Abstract
This study tests the claim that news narratives about shocking criminal acts enable readers to become mediated witnesses, which implies that readers identify with actual eyewitnesses to a crime and vicariously experience the crime from up close. In an experiment (n = 128), participants read an original narrative newspaper article about a mass shooting or an original non-narrative article about the same event. Results provided evidence for a mediated witness experience: Readers of the narrative identified more strongly with eyewitnesses of the crime and had a stronger sense of being present at the shooting than readers of the non-narrative article.
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