Terrorizing the Masses

Ruth DeFoster holds a Ph.D. in mass communication from the University of Minnesota. Her published research focuses on terrorism, crime, identity and mass shootings. She currently teaches communication studies at St. Catherine University in St. Paul, Minnesota.

“In Terrorizing the Masses, Ruth DeFoster analyzes how news media framed five mass shootings occurring over the span of two decades. Given the rarity of these events, DeFoster cogently argues that U.S. news media create the frameworks through which we come to “know” such events and thus determine political, social, and cultural responses to these terrible acts of gun violence. In this important book, DeFoster does not shy away from the difficult questions her analysis raises, particularly in terms of what it is about U.S. culture (and mass shootings, as she takes pains to remind us, are a peculiarly U.S. phenomenon) and its racialized masculinities that create conditions in which such violence continues to occur.”—Carol Stabile, Professor and Associate Dean for the Social Sciences, University of Oregon

• List of Tables and Figures – Acknowledgments – List of Abbreviations – Introduction – Terrorism in the Mass Media: The History of a Slippery Term – Mass Shootings in the United States: Mass Media and the Columbine Effect – “Nuttier Than a Fruitcake”: William Kreutzer and the Fort Bragg Shooting – Camp Liberty, John Russell, and the “Theater of War” – Nidal Hasan and the Fort Hood Shooting: Soldier or Terrorist? – “Terror” or “Tragedy?” Charleston, Orlando, and Mass Shootings in the Age of Trump – Conclusion: Capital-T Terrorism and a Crisis of Toxic Masculinity – Bibliography – Index.