Reducing Gun Violence – Spectacle
10 Questions: Douglas Kellner on the media spectacle
of gun violence
“A
"media spectacle" is an event that disrupts ordinary and habitual
flows of information; such phenomena become popular stories that capture the
attention of the media and the public. Media spectacles circulate through
broadcasting networks, the Internet, social networking, cell phones, and other
new media and communication technologies to magnetize public attention. In a
global networked society, media spectacles proliferate instantaneously and can
become virtual and viral.
Mass
shooting events have grown from a number of elements: cultures of violence
caused by poverty; high school bullying and fighting; a heavily masculine
military, sports and gun culture; ultra-masculine behavior in the corporate and
political world; general societal violence reproduced by media and in the
family and everyday life; and escalating violence in prisons.
In
any of these cases, an ultra-violent masculinity can explode and produce
violence. Until we have new concepts of what it means to be a man that include
intelligence, independence, sensitivity, and the renunciation of bullying and
violence, societal violence will, no doubt, increase.
Media
coverage of such phenomena fails to show how the violence is a pathological
form of resolving male crises, in which men in crisis use the media to gain
celebrity and to overcome feelings of powerlessness and alienation.
“Media Spectacle” by
Douglas Kellner
Spectacle (Critical
Theory)
Celebrities using their
celebrity to protest gun violence
“Why the US has the most mass shootings” CNN
“Some
researchers believe these mass killings can be contagious: One killing or
shooting increases the chances that others will occur within about two weeks,
an "infection" that lasts about 13 days, researchers
found in another study.
The
copycat phenomenon is more acute in the United States because guns are more
accessible than in other countries. "(Access to) firearms (is) a
significant predictor of these incidents," Lankford said.
The United States has more guns than any other
country in the world. There are an estimated 270 million to 310 million
firearms in circulation in the United States. With the American population at
319 million, that breaks down to nearly one firearm for every American.
"It's harder to quantify it,
but I've been struck by research that shows that
being famous is one of this generation's most important goals," Lankford
said. "It seems like Americans are growing in their desire for fame, and
there is no doubt that that there is an association between media coverage that
these offenders get and the likelihood that they will act."
The problem with this motivation is that the shooting at Pulse nightclub has now upped the ante for
other mass shooters who may wish to follow.
"The fame-seeking rampage shooters will attempt
to kill even more victims. We have seen this become almost a kind of
competition," Lankford said. "What perhaps is most frighting is that
if offenders can kill more people and get more fame, the next may try to find
'innovating' -- and I put quotes around that word, 'innovating' -- new ways to
get attention."
For instance, Lankford said, no one had carried out
a shooting attack in a movie theater until Aurora in 2012 but there was a
similar attempt later in the same year. There have been nightclub shootings and
there was a bombing at a gay nightclub in London
in 1999, but not like this, he said. The concern now will be
copycats who will seek similar media attention, he said.
“How the Media Inspires Mass Shooters. And 6 ways news outlets can help prevent copycat attacks.”
“But
what the Daily News editors didn’t realize
was that this sensational approach can possibly do more than perturb or offend.
Such images provide the notoriety mass killers crave and can even be a jolt of
inspiration for the next shooter.
The
next one struck just five weeks later, in Oregon. The 26-year-old man who
murdered nine and wounded nine others at Umpqua Community College last Thursday
had posted comments expressing
admiration for the Virginia killer, apparently impressed with his social-media
achievement: “His face splashed across every screen, his name across the lips
of every person on the planet, all in the course of one day. Seems like the
more people you kill, the more you’re in the limelight.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/10/media-inspires-mass-shooters-copycats/
“Accused S.C. teen wanted to outdo other school
shootings. The problem, he explained, was the weapon.”
“He had been researching other school shooters for
months and, determined to outdo them, learned exactly how many people they'd
murdered: 13 at Columbine High; 26 at Sandy
Hook Elementary; 32 at Virginia Tech.
"I think ill probably most likely kill around
50 or 60," Jesse declared. "If I get lucky maybe 150."
"He wants to talk about how dangerous he is,"
Ballenger testified. "He wanted people to know."
Seven hours after he
was pinned to the ground outside Townville Elementary by a volunteer
firefighter, Jesse acknowledged in an interview with investigators that he'd
shot far fewer kids than he'd intended. The problem, he explained, was the
weapon. He'd only had access to the .40 caliber pistol his father kept in a
dresser drawer. It had jammed on the playground, just 12 seconds after he first
pulled the trigger.
The weapon Jesse really wanted, the one he'd tried
desperately to get, was, the teenager believed, locked in his father's gun
safe: the Ruger Mini-14
Of the Columbine Killers, “The pair's influence over the past two decades
has been enormous, said Langman. He noted that Jesse was at least the 33rd
gunmen to cite Harris and Klebold as an influence.”
“On the morning of the shooting, he
preloaded a magazine for his dad's handgun, writing to his chat group that he
would soon "be on the news."
Jesse was a young man who killed not because of
bullies or abuse or a fractured mind, but because he wanted to attain the life
and status he'd envisioned.
"He was going
to be famous, the best shooter ever," Ballenger testified. "He was
going to be worshiped for a long time - worshiped."
There are references to Columbine in numerous songs.
This is an art piece my friend made addressing the “fake news” and the Parkland shooting
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