A Social Media Home Run: Yanks and Rays Team Up On Gun Violence

I'm writing this piece soon after the tragic massacre of children and teachers in Texas. We are the only nation in the world that allows repeated assaults on children and teachers in schools. Just since 2012: Newtown, CT (26 dead); Marysville, WA (4 dead); Parkland, FL (17 dead); Santa Fe, TX (10 dead); Oxford, MI (4 dead) and Uvalde, TX (21 dead). 

So far we've seen the typical post-massacre routine: cowards in government (mostly Republicans) offering "thoughts and prayers" while refusing to debate gun control measures, ratings driven media spectacle, and the inability of We The People to unite and demand NO MORE. 

When an issue is troubling and complex, the human tendency is to want to avoid careful thinking about it. Covid-19, global climate change and gun violence are three examples. Richard E. Petty and John Cacioppo in 1980 created the  "Elaboration Likelihood Model" (ELM) of persuasion as a way of explaining this phenomenon. ELM posits two "routes" to persuasion: the central and the peripheral. The central route features careful information processing, good faith efforts to comprehend all serious sides of an issue, and being open to new information. The peripheral route, on the other hand, features "mental shortcuts" such as repeating back familiar talking points, trusting the "expertise" of popular commentators, and rejecting information that contradicts already existing positions. (The mass appeal of the Joe Rogan podcast, in my view, is in large part a function of the way he reinforces the desire of his listening audience to avoid deep thinking about any issue; i.e. Rogan is a master tour guide on the peripheral route.). 

By relying on the familiar template and allowing the same cast of characters to repeat back the same talking points, on gun violence mainstream media mostly reinforce the peripheral route. In theory social media, because it gives us a more robust marketplace of ideas, should provide traditional media with ample alternative ways to frame the gun violence issue that prod mainstream audiences to think more critically about the issue. 

Believe it or not, after the Texas tragedy one of the most responsible uses of social media occurred on the Twitter feeds of the New York Yankees and the Tampa Bay Rays. You heard that right: the social media arms of two major league baseball teams ended up trying to educate their followers about gun violence in ways rarely seen or heard in mainstream media.  Jason Zillo, the Yankees’ vice president of communications, told the New York Times that “As citizens of the world, it’s hard to process these shootings and just slip back into a regular routine. For one night, we wanted to reflect and draw attention to statistics that carry so much more significance and weight than batting average.”

Below are the texts of the tweets that were posted on May 26, 2022 by the Yankees and Rays. Notice how each makes a factual claim and cites source material to back it up. 

*Tweet #1:  Every day, more than 110 Americans are killed with guns, and more than 200 are shot and injured. Citation: Centers For Disease Control study on "Underlying Cause of Death 1999-2020" 

*Tweet #2: Firearms were the leading cause of death for American children and teens in 2020. Citation: CDC Data

*Tweet #3: 58 percent of American adults or someone they care for have experienced gun violence.  Citation: Survey USA

*Tweet #4: Every 3 hours, a young Black man dies by gun homicide. Citation: CDC Data

*Tweet #5: Each year, more than 4,100 Latinx people dies from gun violence in the US and 13,300 are shot and wounded. Citation: CDC Data

*Tweet #6: About 4.5 million women in the US today report having been threatened with a gun by an intimate partner. Citation: National Library of Medicine Study

*Tweet #7: Access to a gun triples the risk of death by suicide. Citation: Annals of Internal Medicine Study 

*Tweet #8: An average of 4,500 veterans die by firearm suicide every year, about 12 veterans each day.  Citation: US Department of Veterans Affairs 

*Tweet #9: When an assault weapon is used in a mass shooting, it results in six times as many people shot as when other weapons are used.  Citation: Everytown research and policy

The Twitter responses to the Yankees/Rays tweets were fully consistent with what the Elaboration Likelihood Model described earlier would predict: tweeters (especially pro-gun people) dutifully repeated back the same one liners they trot out after every tragedy. That was not surprising. What was surprising was the high amount of likes and retweets the Yankee tweets received. Trolls were not able to silence those who want to take guns seriously and pressure the government to DO SOMETHING. 

In the sports world, the Yankees and Rays were not alone in trying to provoke a meaningful response. San Francisco Giants manager Gabe Kapler wrote a thoughtful blog post  questioning whether or not the United States can legitimately be called the "Home of the Brave."  He said in part: 

I’m often struck before our games by the lack of delivery of the promise of what our national anthem represents. We stand in honor of a country where we elect representatives to serve us, to thoughtfully consider and enact legislation that protects the interests of all the people in this country and to move this country forward towards the vision of the “shining city on the hill.” But instead, we thoughtlessly link our moment of silence and grief with the equally thoughtless display of celebration for a country that refuses to take up the concept of controlling the sale of weapons used nearly exclusively for the mass slaughter of human beings. We have our moment (over and over), and then we move on without demanding real change from the people we empower to make these changes. We stand, we bow our heads, and the people in power leave on recess, celebrating their own patriotism at every turn.

Every time I place my hand over my heart and remove my hat, I’m participating in a self congratulatory glorification of the ONLY country where these mass shootings take place. 

San Francisco Giants manager Gabe Kapler (left), like Colin Kaepernick (right), announced that he would not stand for the national anthem as a peaceful protest. He made an exception for Memorial Day. Unlike Kaepernick, Kapler probably won't be banished from his sport for speaking out. 

Similarly, Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr gave an impassioned statement ahead of game four versus the Dallas Mavericks. Speaking for all decent people, he asked "WHEN ARE WE GONNA DO SOMETHING!!!"  

If history is a guide, the honest answer to Kerr's question is "not anytime soon." The good news is that history does not determine the present or the future. WE THE PEOPLE, if we can find a way to unite all people of goodwill, can make great changes. 

No one is under any illusion that the social media feeds of the Yankees and Rays, or the impassioned pleas of Kapler and Kerr, will by themselves create any change. Yet the fact that they recognize that having a large public platform carries great moral responsibility is significant. In their own ways, they are challenging us to think critically and take a stand on gun violence. They are pointing us away from the peripheral route and toward the central. When enough of us--regardless of the size of our platforms or spheres of influence--do the same, then we will see real change.