MediaCloud search results for “gun” and “Black Friday” 11/25–12/3It’s been a roller-coaster of a week in America, bookended by mass shootings at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado and a social service center in California. Our brains and the media nervous system that feeds (on) them are more on edge than usual, it seems. The news from last Friday, that gun sales on Black Friday broke national one-day sales records, reverberated darkly. But reflecting back on the data, and how the media covered that news, I couldn’t help but notice something else: Giving Tuesday, which was founded just three years ago as a response to the mass consumerism of Black Friday and CyberMonday, has taken off like wildfire. It’s far...
