Making sense of rumors about the Trump assassination attempt
The Center for an Informed Public at the University of Washington created 'rapid research' analysis of consumer behavior online following Saturday's shooting of former President Donald Trump. Their findings include discussing the concept of 'collective sensemaking' using speculation regarding the shooter and his motives as an example, the expected partisan rhetoric, and those looking to gain social (and literal) financial currency.
Center for an Informed Public, University of Washington
On Saturday afternoon, July 13, 2024, a campaign rally stage in rural Butler, Pennsylvania became the site of a horrific and tragic event: an assassination attempt on former president Donald J. Trump. The presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee had been speaking during the rally when audience members reported hearing shots fired. Within seconds, members of Trump’s security detail surrounded him as he took cover behind the podium. Moments later, he would emerge from the scrum with his face bloodied and his fist raised, captured in immediately iconic photographs that lit up the internet.
The aftermath of the event was chaotic as officials, rally attendees, and online audiences tried to make sense of a dynamic and, at times, conflicting information space. Initial media reports containing hedgy language about “popping noises” were soon updated to assert that shots had indeed been fired. News spread that three audience members had been hit by gunfire, which resulted in one fatality. Photos circulated of a suspected shooter who lay dead on a rooftop a few hundred feet away. As the facts crystallized, information participants worked to determine the frames through which those facts would be interpreted. Diverging along ideological lines, pro-Trump rhetoric attempted to assign blame for the shooting, anchoring on an assumption that the perpetrator was a Democrat motivated by political rhetoric acutely critical of Trump. Meanwhile, among anti-Trump commentators, a sense of skepticism spread, with many theorizing that the event may have been “staged” by the Trump campaign for political gain.
For researchers familiar with how information flows during crisis events (and specifically in the aftermath of mass shootings) these dynamics — unpredictable and uncertain information spaces, political framing contests, conspiracy theorizing — are not surprising. Instead, they are reflective of core characteristics of many crisis events, the sociotechnical structure of our modern information spaces, and our political moment.
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