The coverage of Parkland through social media started shortly after the shooting began. Content ranging from Snapchat videos to emotional posts for help were released and shared on multiple platforms, including Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Students captured the incident on their own phones, including videos of them shielding themselves and areas in the classroom that were damaged from the shots. Students were using Facebook and Twitter specifically to determine if certain friends or family members were still alive, a few posts received thousands of shares from the public. Even during the attack, students still sent tweets. One student stated, “my school is being shot up and I am locked inside” (Shayanian, 2018).
The Parkland coverage on social media did not end there. Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School students called out lawmakers and created a plan for action. The most popular social media platforms became flooded with photos and videos of protesting students, Emma González, David Hogg, Cameron Kasky, and Sarah Chadwick. These students used social media to voice their opinion, call out lawmakers, and spread awareness about gun control. Twitter rapidly verified the accounts of these four students to support their credibility of their information (Wagner, 2018).
