Tales of Tragedy
Tales of Tragedy
Strategic Rhetoric in News Coverage of the Columbine and Virginia Tech Massacres
This chapter explores intersections of race, nationality, class, and heterosexuality in news coverage of the 1999 Columbine High School and 2007 Virginia Tech shootings. In many ways, the media portrayed the killers as troubled loners bent on destroying the individuals who contributed to their alienation. Media discourse also constructs the killers as socially deviant, using race, nationality, and sexuality to do so. By aligning violence with urban cities, depicting suburban college campuses as idyllic, and rendering the racialized masculine killers as out of place, media discourse draws attention away from examination of the social and cultural basis for violence and distress. Thus, more consideration should be given to the killers' tactical rhetorics, as their self-representation offers a unique opportunity for scholars to understand how the men viewed themselves within systems of power rendered visible through their bloodshed.
Keywords: Columbine shootings, Virginia Tech shootings, alienation, violence, racialized killers, media discourse, tactical rhetorics
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