This study examines the narratives that people who are deeply interested in school shootings tell about school shootings and their interest in the subject. Data come from 22 qualitative online interviews with individuals from 12 countries across the world, and the study is based on a framework of narrative criminology. We find that the theme of bullying weaves together personal narratives and the master narrative of school shootings. We discuss how deep interest in school shootings does not equal a desire to commit a massacre; rather, the circulation and recreation of the bullying story can reinforce scripts about responding to bullying with mass violence.
This study is grounded in extensive online ethnographic fieldwork and interviews with 22 people who expressed a deep interest in school shootings. Such people form a global online subculture; they share common interests and find the same cultural objects important. Media accounts of school shootings have fueled this subculture; its members participate in the recreation and circulation of online media content and give new meanings to that content. We found that people deeply interested in school shootings do not form a homogenous group, and they are divided to four subgroups within the subculture based on members' focus and interest: researchers, fan girls, Columbiners and copycats. Out of these, copycats are the only subgroup explicitly interested in replicating the acts, although subgroup membership can overlap, and members can move from one subgroup to another. Beyond copycats, other subgroups also participate in giving perpetrators fame and circulate reasons for the shootings. These accounts may influence future perpetrators.
School shootings and terrorism attacks share many similarities, but these acts are often studied in separate research fields. Therefore, authors of studies on school shootings have not discussed radicalization of the perpetrators in depth, even though in terrorism studies radicalization is a highly researched theme. Online radicalization is even less studied in the school shooting context. Using opinion radicalization theory developed in terrorism studies, we analyzed online interviews (n = 22) with people deeply interested in school shootings. The analysis showed that people deeply interested in school shootings can be divided into three different groups based on the radicalness of their opinions toward school shootings: those with neutral opinions, sympathizers, and those interested in conducting a massacre. Data also indicate that becoming deeply interested in school shootings seems to strengthen an individual’s opinions more than it changes them. Research and risk assessment of school shootings should focus more on the radicalization process of school shooters, because it is also done in the area of terrorism studies. The results imply that online school shooting communities have unused potential in the prevention of school shootings.
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