Soundtrack of the School Shootings

Abstract

School shootings have had an enormous cultural impact on discussions about youth worldwide. Studies on school shootings have not yet considered the complex nature of youth subcultures, often blaming particular subcultures or cultural products. This article analyzes how school shooters use different cultural products including books, films and, especially, music. The interest lies in examining how particular cultural products are woven into the fabric of the cultural script of school shootings. The music of 46 videos left by the Finnish Jokela High School shooter is analyzed in the context of the cultural script of the shootings. School shooters are not only fascinated by previous shootings but are also fans of similar cultural products. Music is actively used as a reference. Shooters actively searched for lyrics that enforce the idea of revolutionary violence. Internet videos offered a channel for shooters to interact with other people.

Exposure to preincident behavior and reporting in college students.

“…Particularly, students with lower class standing (i.e., a group appearing unlikely to report) typically use peers to gain awareness of acceptable student behavior and campus social norms (Paluck & Shepherd, 2012). Highly connected students respected by males (e.g., fraternity presidents, athletic team captains) and students involved in delinquency (e.g., those involved in fringe subcultures, edgy musicians; Kiilakoski & Oksanen, 2011) would appear highly important to effective peer intervention techniques, as these individuals would have the greatest influential ability with students at highrisk for viewing and not reporting preincident behavior. Peer education with these social referents within concentrated male (e.g., male dormitories, fraternities, male athletic teams) or delinquent student (e.g., judicial affairs stipulations) populations would appear especially relevant to the goals of campus threat assessment.…”

German mass murderers and their proximal warning behaviors.

“…Some school shootings and mass killings by adults in a public space can also be described by the superordinate terms “amok” or “rampage.” For example, the concept of amok, originating in southeastern Asia, appears to be independent of time (Hoffmann & Allwinn, 2016; Westermeyer, 1982), culture (Adler, 2015; Hempel, Levine, Meloy, & Westermeyer, 2000), and geographical regions (Hempel et al, 1999). On the other hand, cultural aspects (Adler, 2015) and cultural scripts (Helfgott, 2015; Kiilakoski & Oksanen, 2011; Newman et al, 2004; Sumiala & Tikka, 2011) can shape specific details of rampage shootings (Douglas & Olshaker, 1999; Helfgott, 2015), including the perpetrator’s appearance and his chosen modus operandi (Helfgott, 2015; Meloy & Mohandie, 2001; Surette, 2002, 2016).…”

Columbine Subculture as a Threat to Information Security

“…As David McWilliam notes, the reach of Columbine's legacy is so great that the very word has become cultural shorthand for school shootings [4]. Kiilakoski and Oksanen argue that the Columbine school shooting spawned a cultural 'script' for imitation by adherents of mass school shootings [5]. This is mainly due to the active media coverage of the incident at Columbine School, the creation of a crime myth of the 'juvenile super predator' [6].…”