Individual Claimsmaking after the Parkland Shooting

In order to identify factors that may help explain when individual claimsmaking converges around a common set of messages on different forums across a complex media system, we examine individual discourse during the two-week period in which the "Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Act" was debated, passed, and signed into law by Governor Rick Scott. Specifically, we assess the extent to which two factors identified in the literature as relevant to individual expression – elite frames and movement mobilization – seem to influence claimsmaking in three mediated forums - Twitter, Letters to the Editor and op-eds that appear in mainstream news outlets, and emails sent to Rick Scott about the legislation. We find that movement mobilization, in particular, seems to have influenced individual claimsmaking across the forums. Additionally, we find that there is more coalescence in claimsmaking around the gun control movement than the gun rights movement, and that movement coordination may help explain these differences.