Violent, Suicidal and Psychopathic: How are Music Oriented Sub-Cultures Portrayed in the Mainstream News Media?

A Research Project by Alistair Ryder

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Contents:

Thesis- 3

Literature Review- 4

Methodology- 6

Findings: Research of Newspaper Articles and Word Clouds- 8

Interviews- 10

Analysis- 12

Conclusion- 14

Bibliography- 15

Appendices: Interview Transcripts- 16

Appendices: Word Clouds- 27

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Thesis:

In the years following the Columbine High School Massacre in 1999, international news media (namely tabloid newspaper reports) has often invoked the music taste of a criminal as a suggestion of bad character. These sensationalized media reports do nothing but create unwarranted moral panics towards often irrelevant sub-cultures. Folk Devils and Moral Panics (Cohen: 2011) outlines the seven categories of people the media uses as catalysts for moral panics, which notably includes; “Young, working class Violent males, school violence, bullying or shoot-outs, satanic rituals and sex, violence and blaming the media”. Elements of all these categories are present in all the case studies chosen, leading the news media to create moral panics towards entire sub-cultures in the wake of what has always transpired as being a one-off freak event.

For example, the most recent case study that will be discussed, the 2014 murder of Leeds schoolteacher Ann McGuire by the then fifteen year old student Will Cornick, has a vast combination of Cohen’s Moral panic catalysts. It concerns a young working class violent male, who conducted an abhorrent scene of school violence; this was immediately blamed on his fandom of so-called “emo bands”, as well as his obsession with violent video games- a textbook “blame the media” moral panic. In the British media, comparisons were drawn with the 1999 Columbine massacre, which too shared many of the same moral panic catalysts; a “blame the media” element (in this case Goth music, most notably Marilyn Manson), the working-class violent males and school violence. The cases were only similar by reducing them to catalysts- but by invoking past tragedies, the media constantly creates new moral panics.

This project aims to discover if the news media has a harmful portrayal of music sub-cultures and whether or not it reinforces negative stereotypes towards them by referencing them in negative news stories such as the case studies outlined above. It will interview members of sub-cultures to ask whether or not they believe there is a negative media portrayal, as well as media experts to help analyse whether the moral panics created by the news are ever justified. The music sub-cultures that are going to be analysed in the most detail are the Goth and Emo sub-cultures; both are fans of the sub-genres of rock music that are characterised by dark and emotional lyrics, that have caused concern in the media in recent years.

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Literature Review:

The case studies chosen are ones that have all attempted to generate moral panics towards Gothic sub-cultures. As has been previously outlined, a recent case study will be the stabbing of teacher Ann Maguire by student Will Cornick, as initial reports referenced him being a fan of bands from the emo subculture. For two comparative case studies, the coverage of the Columbine Massacre and the Sandy Hook Massacre will be analysed as in both cases the killers were directly linked to the Goth sub-culture by the media. In the thirteen years that separate Columbine and Sandy Hook, British news media reports that portrayed these sub-cultures negatively appeared in the headlines frequently. Tom Rawstorne’s 2008 article for the Daily mail’s “Femail” supplement, “Why No Child is Safe from the Sinister Cult of Emo” is one of the more hysterical examples from the British news media that aims to connect a simple music sub-culture with violence and other moral panic catalysts in order to terrify the reader.

The piece alludes to the same moral panics this paper has already discussed, most notably the “blame the media” element, with social media sites (such as the now outdated Bebo website) as well as different bands getting blamed. Two of these bands (Good Charlotte and Blink 182) don’t even perform emo music, but their success and widespread popularity, in comparison with most emo bands, makes them an easier “blame the media” catalyst. However, Rawstorne’s article adds a new moral panic catalyst, that of the “satanic ritual”. By repeatedly alluding to the fact Emo’s are “widely considered to be a cult or a sect”, as well as convincing each other to commit suicide to go to the “"black parade" a place where (emo’s believe) they go after they die”, the piece wrongly assumes that all fans of this music genre (and all members of this music sub-culture) are suicidal and free of empathy, goading each other to commit suicide as part of a thinly veiled satanic ritual. It should also be noted that the “black parade” isn’t a place where emo’s believe they go when they die, but actually the title of a widely popular album by My Chemical Romance, the band who this article puts the majority of the blame on for inspiring British teenagers to join the ill-defined “emo sect”. There are dual reasons that the British media report about sub-cultures this way; by simplifying a whole culture and stripping it of context, it creates easy moral-panic headlines. More importantly, negative reports constantly make headlines as journalists don’t understand music sub-cultures, something this research paper will explore in greater detail.

The central argument of this research paper is that in most cases, details of the individuals music taste is irrelevant and is only included in order to make the story a moral panic, something which does no favours to the public perception of subcultures. This argument is supported in a similar research paper by Gabor Por (2003), who claims that following Columbine “It is no wonder that media consumers who do not spend much time looking beyond the headlines may stereotype Goths as dangerous and suicidal. Because of the fast paced nature of the mass media, always on the trails of the next big news, it can rarely draw a more detailed and thus more accurate picture”. Por’s thesis helps establish why music taste is invoked at all when discussing an irrelevant news case- by commenting on pop-culture tastes when describing the individuals involved, the media plays to already presumed stereotypes, so it doesn’t have to “draw a more detailed and thus more accurate picture”. If we are told an individual likes listening to Goth or emo music, this is media shorthand to say they are “dangerous and suicidal”, a stereotype that could be understood by audiences without needing to elaborate on specific details, something the “fast-paced” mass media is seldom able to do.

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In support of the thesis there will be an examination as to whether an individual is a clearly identified member of that subculture, or has just been portrayed as a member of a culture with negative connotations in the public eye in order to generate an over-familiar moral panic. A case study that supports this is the Sandy Hook Elementary School Massacre in December 2012, where the man who carried out the shootings, Adam Lanza, was described by international media reports as “the Goth killer” (Stebner and Durante: 2012) despite having no clear connection to the sub-culture. The use of the word “Goth” suggests a negative stereotype that the “Media consumers who do not spend much time looking beyond the headlines” would be familiar with, therefore advancing a moral panic in the public eye without them even needing to read the story itself.

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Methodology

The quantative analysis for this project will consist of analysing news articles in the immediate dates following a news event that was tangentially related to either sub-culture. The language used in the articles will be placed into word clouds, which will highlight the most used words that each publication to be analysed used for each respective story. These word clouds will then be shown to interviewees as part of the qualitative analysis, to discuss whether or not the language used creates a “moral panic” towards the aforementioned gothic subcultures. For a statistical reference, Newsbank will be used to examine news articles on each case study referenced, taken from British newspapers of different political stances aimed at different target audiences (liberal broadsheet The Guardian, non-politically affiliated broadsheet The Independent, right-wing hybrid paper The Daily Mail, and right-wing tabloid The Sun). The stories examined will be in the days following a significant case study: April 29-30 2014, the two days following Ann Maguire’s murder, December 15-16 2012, the days following the mass murder of “Goth killer” Adam Lanza and April 21-24th 1999, the days following the Columbine Massacre, the news event that appeared to have triggered the negative media perception of Gothic sub-cultures. These case studies have all been chosen due to the amount of news coverage they generated in the UK and how they all created a moral panic towards a sub-culture that may have not been directly relevant to any of the stories at hand. In the proposal for this piece, there was the suggestion that a focus group consisting of members of these sub-cultures would be shown these articles (and word clouds) and asked for their feedback. Now, the articles and word clouds will instead be shown to prospective interviewees individually so other people can’t influence their opinions on the articles.

For the qualitative analysis, there will be a number of exclusive interviews conducted with experts on the subjects discussed. In the proposal the interviewees suggested were journalists from the Yorkshire Evening Post (due to their coverage of the Ann McGuire case) and the Daily Mail, who played a central part in the “war on emo” moral panic. After initial correspondence ceased with Daily Mail columnist Tom Rawstorne, whose “Sinister Cult of Emo” piece will be analysed here, it became difficult to find journalists with opinions contrary to the central thesis to discuss their views on the topic. Instead, the project will focus more on speaking to experts of subcultures and those who could be potentially affected by moral panics, rather than journalists who have reported stories they are tangentially involved with. Firstly, there is an exclusive interview with George Garner, deputy editor of weekly rock music magazine Kerrang, whose audience largely consists of members of these sub-cultures and teenagers- two groups who are both referred to in all case studies.

The proposal also claimed there would be an interview with a leading academic to analyse the word clouds. However, correspondence with language academics proved difficult as they all similarly believed that their lack of knowledge of the music sub-cultures being discussed would hinder their ability to analyse the language effectively. It became clear that people who were directly affected by Cohen’s several categories of moral panics needed to be interviewed, rather than academics with little knowledge of the subject at hand. Peter Sammons, Head of Media at Pudsey Grangefield School, helped to analyse the language of the Word Clouds and spoke of whether he believed people in the teaching profession were concerned by media moral panics such as “school violence, bullying or shoot-outs”. There will also be interviews from people belonging to two different sub-cultures; Dec Sherry, a Theology student at Liverpool Hope University, who belongs to the Goth sub-culture, as well as Sam Sleight, who has recently co-written a similar research paper about the media

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perception of sub-cultures and classifies himself as a “metal head”. Female members of sub-cultures were purposefully not chosen for interviews, as Cohen’s theory outlines “working class violent males” as a central moral panic, so working class male members of sub-cultures are likely to be more affected by the negative media coverage.

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Findings: Research of Newspaper Articles and Word Clouds

One of the significant findings of the newspaper analysis is that in the recent case studies (Adam Lanza and Will Cornick) their fandom of these music genres isn’t really clarified; instead, the reports are just speculated and exaggerated respectively. In the latter case, the music tastes of the individual were kept away from the articles published by almost all publications in the dates following the event (April 29- April 30 2014), instead focusing on the central story, as well as the outpouring of grief from friends and relatives of teacher Ann McGuire. A notable exception is a Daily Mail article irrelevantly claiming that the Facebook page of (the then unnamed) Will Cornick had “links to British heavy metal bands Enter Shakari and Bring Me The Horizon (and) he had posted a picture of himself dressed in black with long hair” (Tozer/Freeman: 2014).

This fact is reported irrelevantly, suggesting that it was hastily included in order to connect it to the publication’s infamous relationship with gothic subcultures, which will be discussed in further detail later in this project. Another piece by Mail journalist Martin Robinson published on April 29 th profiles Cornick as a “loner who played video games like Grand Theft Auto and Dark Souls”, as well as being “A member of Achievement Hunter- a gaming community”. With violent videogames being held responsible for a number of similar news events, the inclusion here suggests its part of Cohen’s “Blame the Media” moral panic. Even though violent videogames are being blamed in the headline, there is no concrete evidence (either anecdotal or from the ensuing court case) that suggests that his fondness for playing the games was in anyway responsible for his actions.

In several articles, in both the Mail and other publications, Cornick was described as “a loner”. By exaggerating his music tastes or the fact he plays video games, it appears to make him look like a member of a sub-culture instead of a lone individual, therefore easier to create a moral panic over as the reader is likely to assume other members of those cultures are capable of doing the same. By subscribing to Cohen’s Moral Panic theory and “blaming the media” for these isolated actions, it allows the general public to develop a misunderstanding of people who enjoy heavy metal music and videogames. It also allows the public to misinterpret the music or videogames in question as something that provokes violence due to its irrelevant reference when reporting a single isolated incident. In the word clouds created from every Daily Mail article in the days following the event making national headlines (all word clouds can be found in full in the appendices), none of the words associated with the aforementioned “moral panics” are highlighted as being used the most, although the words “rock”, “band” and “metal” all make minor appearances. Noticeably, these words don’t make an appearance in the word clouds of the other newspapers analysed, with the exception of The Independent, which similarly mentions “metal”. The likely reason for this is because it is the only British case study chosen for analysis, so the reporting handles the central story more sensitively in comparison, as friends and relatives of McGuire could be reading, whereas families of Columbine and Sandy Hook victims would unlikely be reading British coverage of the event.

In all the case studies for this project, the music (or other pop-culture) tastes of the individuals who committed the acts of violence were never referenced immediately after the event, instead being published in articles in the days afterwards. For example, in the reports of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, initial focus was on the attack itself, before details of killer Adam Lanza’s obsession with videogames like Call of Duty made international headlines. Of the three cases being analysed extensively, the Adam Lanza case is the clear anomaly; his actions were blamed more

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on videogames then violent music (which is still a vital part of Cohen’s “Blame the Media” theory) and his relationship with Goth culture is questionable. He was dubbed the “Goth killer” by international media, due to a widely circulated throwaway quote from an eyewitness at Sandy Hook that claims her son said that Lanza was “very thin, very remote and was one of the goths” (Cusick: 2012).

James Cusick’s article for the Independent, speculatively titled “What drove Lanza to embark on his killing spree”, doesn’t mention any attributes (such as music taste) that although irrelevant, would associate him to the Goth sub-culture. The reason this quote has been widely circulated is likely for a comparison with the Columbine massacre, where the perpetrators of the killing spree were easily identifiable members of a Gothic sub-culture. By suggesting another Goth has carried out such an attack, even though the only evidence Lanza was a Goth is merely anecdotal, it’s easy to create a moral panic towards that sub-culture, as the two biggest school massacres in American history were carried out by “Goths”. Even though violent videogames are being blamed more extensively in the article, Cusick concludes by stating that “In the coming search for sense and reason in the aftermath of Friday’s terrifying chaos, many will be asking themselves why they didn’t look behind the Goth mask”. Although other news sources circulated the “one of the goths” quote, they didn’t develop the information in a way that would prove pejorative to members of the culture, as Cusick’s piece for The Independent unambiguously does. None of the Word Clouds for the Adam Lanza stories include “goth” in their most used words- suggesting it was just included in the headlines in order to be eye-catching rather than create a moral panic, which is equally harmful to the Gothic sub-culture, as it shows that in the eyes of the mainstream public, they are perennially associated with school shootings.

This association of gothic sub-cultures with school shootings in the media originates in the coverage of Columbine in 1999. However, from the findings of the word clouds, the British media’s approach to covering that story differed from how they cover temporary news events that are similar in nature, which will be analysed in greater detail later in this project.

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Interviews

The first exclusive interview conducted for this project was with the deputy editor of Kerrang magazine, George Garner (full interview in appendix). As he started working for the publication in 2008, it coincided with the Daily Mail’s publication of Tom Rawstorne’s “sinister cult of emo” article, which proved controversial to readers of the magazine, inspiring several articles about the “war on emo” in the process. Citing this example, Garner talked about how this connected with the media’s obsession with creating moral panics; “So many of the media panics instigated in the news tend to come and go very quickly these days. The Daily Mail’s ‘war on emo’, for instance, was a flash in the pan moral panic. The Daily Mail soon found new targets after claiming My Chemical Romance’s “Black Parade” album was a ‘celebration of self-harm’. These moral panics never last long. There is the sense that these panics are always the same thing: video games, music and films will always be easy targets for moral guardians – it’s only the specific titles that change”.

Although Garner claimed he doesn’t like to generalise on the editorial decisions of publications as a rule, he still believes that several publications are harmful in their portrayal of the selected sub-cultures: “I think these representations are harmful because they serve to perpetuate and reinforce pre-existing negative stereotypes: namely, the demonization of the non-norm. There is a certain sense in which anything that’s outside of the mainstream culturally these days is ultimately either subsumed into it, or forever cut adrift and treated as different, something to fear or mock. Various subcultures, whether musical or not, have long been on the receiving end of this to different effects. Moral panics are temporary but the outsider statuses of subcultures they reinforce are permanent. Negative news articles are simply the tip of the iceberg”.

The first exclusive interview with a member of a sub culture was Dec Sherry, a theology student at Liverpool Hope University. Although he is no longer a member of the Goth sub-culture, he is still a vocal fan of the bands that have been referenced in these case studies and has first-hand knowledge of the culture that makes him an expert when discussing their portrayal in the news. However, unlike Garner, he believes that the negative news coverage is more often than not seen as laughable to people in those communities instead of harmful. Talking about the Ann McGuire case, where killer Will Cornick was noted as being a fan of “bands like Enter Shikari and Bring Me the Horizon”, Sherry said “As a long term fan of both of these bands it was slightly hilarious to read. Especially with Enter Shikari, whose songs are all about anti-racism, or anti capitalism, or gender equality, social cohesion, the environment etc. If caring for the planet makes you a killer in people’s opinions I have no idea what listening to songs about dark topics would bring out in people from that perspective”.

Despite personally seeing such coverage as laughable, he doesn’t deny that media consumers would still be likely to forge negative opinions on sub-cultures based on news coverage, which is likely due to journalists not understanding the music they are criticizing. “Most of societies views come from the media- look at how alternative music genres such as metal and hardcore are perceived. Hardcore is nearly wholly lyrically based in ethics and social conscious philosophies yet because “moshing” exists, anyone who goes to a show is deemed aggressive and violent”.

Peter Sammons, head of media at Pudsey Grangefield School, similarly believes that the media’s attempts at creating moral panics are more often than not laughable, especially the preoccupation with school violence that provides one of Cohen’s seven moral panic catalysts. However, he objects to the idea of any group of people, be they a musical sub-culture or not, being subjected to the

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media’s scrutiny. Talking specifically about the case studies for this project in an exclusive interview (see appendix for full transcript), he said “In the case of Emos and Goths I think it is offensive to suggest that it’s those groups of people who are likely to carry out these acts of violence. We are talking about serious crimes here and it’s nothing to do with fashion or a trend somebody is going through, there are more psychological or deep rooted issues that should be considered when discussing the people carrying out these crimes”.

Although Sammons believes he is “fortunate” to work in a school that doesn’t have the same violence problems that generate headlines and generate moral panics, he still can see how students can develop their actions from the media, even if he shares the other interviewees views in that it is never directly responsible. “There is no doubt the media can be a trigger; violent computer games and music can create a sense of normality for a student, even idolising that lifestyle, but that can be true for any young person. The cause can’t be put down to the media alone; it has to be looked at from a much more holistic point of view. Yet no doubt that when these acts happen in the future, which they unfortunately will, the press will look for media items to blame, there’s no doubt about it”.

There was also an exclusive interview with Sam Sleight, a metal-head who has recently co-written a similar research paper on the media’s perception of heavy metal culture. He echoes Sherry’s views that journalists in general don’t understand music culture, although he does point out that progress is being made at The Guardian, due to the recent hiring of Dom Lawson, a writer for Metal Hammer magazine. Despite this, he still thinks the media constantly creates negative stereotypes and that an individual’s music taste is always irrelevant: “I think it is as ridiculous as judging a killer by their choice in clothes or footwear. If a person has homicidal tendencies, a mental illness or any other force that leads them to commit a particular crime, it is due to the individual’s circumstance. The idea amongst lazy journalists seems to be that music is what inspires a person to become aggressive or murderous, but if that were true the 21 million copies of Metallica’s The Black Album that have been sold would have bred a multitude of killers. The music just happens to be a potential personal response for an individual; many find aggressive music to be cathartic and a way of releasing bottled up anger”.

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Analysis

The coverage of the Columbine massacre generated a significantly higher amount of coverage from the newspapers analysed than either of the other case studies. In his exclusive interview, Peter Sammons put this down to the fact that “Columbine took place in America and we like to pretend we don’t have the same stuff happening over here. Fortunately our gun crime rates are lower over here, which leads our media to become obsessed with the fact America has a gun crime problem”. This suggests the fact that sub-cultures were involved with the story was irrelevant, but for international reports, it was easier to put the blame onto the media. As Ralph Larkin (2007) notes, “Despite the overwhelming media coverage and the subsequent national debate over youth violence, precious few attempts were made to analyse the causes of the shootings. Despite the salience of the story, the vast media presence, the large number of local, state, and national investigators, at the close of the investigation, nobody could offer a coherent explanation as to why Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold set out to kill their peers and destroy their school”. Columbine was the first major news event that generated significant media scrutiny of contemporary music sub-cultures, yet the lack of a “coherent explanation” at the end of the investigation, from both the media and officials, is a clear statement that being members of sub-cultures had no relevance to the event.

The word clouds created from the Columbine articles (see appendix) show a similar lack of clarity on the causes of each subject; as well as “Marilyn Manson” and “Goth” being among the most used in the Sun articles, they also highlighted “Hitler” and “The Matrix”, that shows that the media couldn’t find a single specific motive in pop-culture, so they used the “blame the media” tactic on a variety of sources. An article in The Sun, “Is Slaughter a Copycat of these two films?” (Whigmore: 1999) directly cites The Matrix (as well as the 1995 movie “The Basketball Diaries”) as influencing their motives. Yet the only concrete evidence they have to report the case is anecdotal or merely coincidental. Whigmore reported that “In the Matrix, Reeves wears a black trench coat – just like the gun gang… Another boy who knew the killers said: “The Matrix is just the sort of film they’d see””. The lack of what Larkin describes as a “coherent explanation” to any news event appears to be the trigger for a “Blame the media” moral panic- in this case it just appears unfortunate that the media element with the biggest connection to the case involved Goth music. Instead of creating a single “flash-in-the-pan moral panic” (as George Garner dubbed it), the scrutiny the sub-culture received in the media at the time of Columbine has carried over to create subsequent moral panics; they are all “flash in the pan” moral panics, yet they remain in the public consciousness by being similar to one of the most infamous news events in recent memory.

It has been noted that “In the years since 1999, the Columbine story has forced journalists in Denver to become expert in the complicated dynamic of community recovery from trauma” (Roger/Cote: 2006). Whereas this remains a sensitive issue in their local news media, what Peter Sammons refers to as an “international disassociation” with the story allows it to be reported in a more critical way in the British media. This is a likely reason why the British press were so quick to “blame the media” regardless of its relevancy- the disassociation with American culture allows it to be critical towards Marilyn Manson and other scapegoats in order to generate headlines, without worrying about being insensitive to the communities affected by the massacre, who wouldn’t be reading British coverage of the story. This noticeably differs from the reporting of Ann McGuire’s death, which was initially

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handled far more sensitively in the UK press, likely due to a lack of an “international disassociation”, with the exception of one publication.

One of the most used words in The Daily Mail’s reporting of the story was “seemed” (word clouds in appendix), which Sammons claims was “implying that there is a sense of uncertainty, that we are going to go down this route but cover ourselves by prefacing all our reports by putting that it “seemed” like this individual behaved in this way or it “seemed” like this individual was mentally disturbed beforehand. This creates a sense of uncertainty to allow the audience to put the blame somewhere. It leads the audience down a certain route; one that we can’t say for sure is true or untrue”. Like Larkin’s analysis of post-Columbine news reports, the initial reporting of Ann McGuire’s death couldn’t confirm a “coherent explanation” and therefore could only report on what little information they had about the killer. This could explain why they reported on trivial details obtained by going to his Facebook profile, where the fact he had “liked” pages of emo bands and video games was deemed newsworthy, due to the lack of further information as the investigation was still ongoing. In Sammons’ view, this is undeniably to tap into pre-existing stereotypes of sub-cultures held by the general public; “They are trying to create a persona for this person whose name they can’t publish, by giving enough information about his tastes to tell you what he could be like”.

It could be argued that the news media is only trying to give the audience an impression of the killer’s personality- they can’t publish his name, but have to report on the story due to the public interest. Even though he is against the media persecution of sub-cultures, George Garner argues that “If someone is arrested claiming that a song has influenced them to kill – it is perhaps necessary to report all of the facts specific to an investigation or court case”. However, this is seldom the case; “As an example, in the Ann McGuire case, I find the Daily Mail’s statement ‘Unlike other pupils who listened to popular chart music, such as Taylor Swift, the isolated pair enjoyed heavy metal bands and alternative rock.’ to be completely irrelevant. What has that got to do with anything? This difference simply implies some sort of underlying sinister capability. If a teenager with a different taste in music murders someone, their love of Taylor Swift is hardly going to make headlines”.

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Conclusion

Although it could be argued that the news media only publishes music, or any other pop-culture, tastes to give the reader an impression of the individual’s personality, the manner in which they do it is inarguably harmful and detrimental to members of music sub-cultures and reinforces pre-existing negative stereotypes towards them. The findings here show that music (and to a certain extent, video games) are always blamed either when the media can’t come to a “coherent explanation” for the individual’s actions, or when the story is dying down and the news media needs to create more headlines in order to sustain public interest. This is because journalists have a lack of understanding of music sub-cultures; something which the interviews here show is both a source of comedy and frustration for members of those cultures. With the amount of negative press coverage Goth, Emo and Metal sub-cultures have received in recent years, The Guardian’s hiring of Dom Lawson, a writer for Metal Hammer magazine is a step in the right direction; it may be in the public interest to paint a picture of an individual by using their music taste (or what other little information journalists can obtain) as an example, but it needs to be done in a way that doesn’t further the public’s negative stereotypes of sub-cultures that articles like the ones analysed here have contributed towards. There will always be “Blame the Media” moral panics, but the hiring of experts on sub-cultures to contribute to newspapers should hopefully see an increase in a more realistic portrayal of these cultures.

(5,337 Words)

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Bibliography

Larkin, Ralph. Comprehending Columbine. Philadelphia, PA, USA: Temple University Press, 2007. ProQuest ebrary. Web. 20 March 2015.

Cohen, S. 2011, “Folk Devils and Moral Panics- the creation of Mods and Rockers”, 3rd ed. London: Routledge

Rawstorne, T. 2008, “Why No Child is Safe From the Sinister Cult of Emo”, The Daily Mail <accessed at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-566481/Why-child-safe-sinister-cult-emo.html >

Por, G. 2003, Goth vs. The Mass Media <available at http://www.academia.edu/446612/Goth_Vs._the_Mass_Media>

Stebner, B., Durante, T. 2012, From high school loner to cold-blooded 'killer': How Adam Lanza went from quiet honor student to 'goth killer' who didn't utter a word during horrific murdering spree, The Daily Mail <available online at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2248498/Sandy-Hook-Elementary-School-shooting-Adam-Lanza-went-honor-student-goth-killer.html>

Tozer, J. and Freeman, S, 2014. Middle-class drug-user with Grim Reaper drawn on his Facebook page: Classmates tell how murder suspect was a bright boy who became a loner [online] [available at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2615421/Middle-class-drug-user-Grim-Reaper-drawn-Facebook-page-Classmates-tell-murder-suspect-bright-boy-loner.html]

Robinson, M. 2014. Schoolboy, 15, accused of stabbing teacher was loner who played online videogames like Dark Souls and Grand Theft Auto [online] [available at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2615694/Loner-schoolboy-murder-suspect-enjoyed-video-games.html]

Cusick, J. 2012. Portrait of a Killer: What drove Lanza to embark on his murderous Spree? [online] [accessed at http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/portrait-of-a-killer-what-drove-lanza-to-embark-on-his-murderous-spree-8420460.html?origin=internalSearch]

Simpson R., Cote, W. 2006, Covering violence :a guide to ethical reporting about victims and trauma. New York: Columbia University Press

Wigmore, B. 1999, Is Slaughter a Copycat of these two films?, The Sun, available through NewsBank website [infoweb.newsbank.com]

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Interview Transcripts

Peter Sammons (Face-to-Face)

Alistair: So, the interview for my dissertation is going to be about moral panics and how the media creates moral panics, for example goth and emo music being related to school shootings. One of the things I’ve researched outlines the seven different types of moral panics and I want a teacher to comment on them as they will be directly affected by them. Of the seven moral panics, one that is always highlighted is school violence- has this ever concerned you as a teacher, or do you think this is just a media moral panic created to concern readers?

Peter: On the whole there is a certain media hype to it, but there have been notable cases, even here in Leeds last year where a teacher got stabbed to death. These incidents are isolated incidents and therefore it’s not something I’m concerned with when I come to school each day and go about my job. I’m fortunate to work in a school, where although there are social difficulties, the threat of violence is never really one of them. There are very few times when I feel threatened in a physical way; violence in schools can happen, it’s just when it does happen the media highlights it severely. You hear of places around the country who have difficulty with violence and staff get threatened or attacked and it’s always by a student.

Alistair: You mentioned the Ann McGuire murder, which is one of the central moral panic case studies- I was just wondering if the coverage of that specifically affected you personally as a teacher, or did you think it was just another textbook example of the media panicking?

Peter: When it happened there was a sense of realisation that this could happen- the boy that was involved in the Ann McGuire case was not known to be a troublemaker, even though he was identified as having some difficulties, like many students. Ann McGuire was an outstanding teacher and was renowned for caring for her students, so for something like that to happen to her it suggests the same thing could happen to anyone. In reality, there’s probably more chance of me walking down the high street in Leeds and getting stabbed than there is of me getting stabbed in my school. Therefore, I can’t take the approach of being scared and worried about it, as it was an isolated incident; yes it was a school, yes it was a teacher and a pupil, but there are equally as dangerous situations outside of the school and the classroom.

Alistair: The case studies I’ve chosen all suggest the acts of violence were carried out by Goths and Emos. Do you believe that that sense of profiling is offensive as it could be any student capable of this? And also that it could be just the media trying to create moral panics towards those sub-cultures to make it easier for the readers to draw their own conclusions?

Peter: I suppose there is- I imagine if you did a similar study in America, the profile of that person would be slightly different. We’ve seen in America recently how the media and the police to a certain degree have profiled people and treated them differently. In the case of Emos and Goths I think it is offensive to suggest that it’s those groups of people who are likely to carry out these acts of violence. We are talking about serious crimes here and it’s nothing to do with fashion or a trend somebody is going through, there are more psychological or deep rooted issues that should be considered when discussing the people carrying out these crimes. That would be the common trend- there is undeniably a misrepresentation of the Goth and Emo communities in these case studies.

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Alistair: Do you think it would be relevant to report if the person was a Goth or an emo? For example in the Ann McGuire case the killer’s music taste was repeatedly published and in the Sandy Hook massacre the killer was referred to as “The Goth Killer” simply because he wore black, even though there was never any suggestion he was interested in that music at all.

Peter: I feel it is completely inappropriate in the reporting of that story. All cases of child violence they try to look at the causes for it and it always seems to be the media that they fall back on, whether it’s the music they listen to or whether it’s the computer games they played. You start to think that there are certain things that install ideas in people’s heads, but very few people who listen to that music or play these games carry out these acts of violence, so it’s a difficult one. There tends to be from the media an aim to try and find the cause, but these issues are so complex they require a deep psychological examination and there are far more rooted problems that have caused the actual act to take place. There is no doubt the media can be a trigger; violent computer games and music can create a sense of normality for a student, even idolising that lifestyle, but that can be true for any young person. The cause can’t be put down to the media alone, it has to be looked at from a much more holistic point of view.

Alistair: But do you think that even in future case studies like this the media will still blame violent music and video games? I was interviewing the deputy editor of Kerrang magazine and he believed the same thing would happen in future cases.

Peter: Yeah, absolutely, for the press it’s just a quick win. They will always look for the easiest thing to put the cause down to and that is it. There’s no doubt that when these acts happen in the future, which they unfortunately will, the press will look for media items to blame, there’s no doubt about it.

Alistair: So for this project I created word clouds to analyse news stories from the Ann McGuire killing, the Sandy Hook Massacre and the Columbine massacre in the days immediately following each incident. They were culled from four different newspapers, The Daily Mail, The Sun, the Guardian and The Independent, to see if the reporting was different in each publication. Before I show you the word clouds, what would your immediate impression be of how these papers would report the stories?

Peter: The Mail will have a lot of scare-mongering, The Guardian will probably try to look at a social issue around it, The Independent will be similar at looking at the issues around it and asking why it happened. The Sun will probably just have a load of pictures to be honest, but the words will be trying to tell the story from a personal point of view, from the family and the students.

Alistair: So I’ve boiled 110 pages of news stories from all sources down into all these word clouds, so We’ll start with the Guardian’s coverage of Ann McGuire. Would you agree this doesn’t really create a moral panic in its reporting?

Peter: Yeah, I believe that the Guardian is more careful in its approach to reporting the story, especially in the initial days of the news breaking that you are analysing here. I imagine the content would change in the later days.

Alistair: Next is the Guardian’s coverage of Adam Lanza, the “goth killer”, although notably that would doesn’t appear on the word clouds

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Peter: I imagine if we looked at this coverage in a tabloid paper there wouldn’t be the same variety of words- here we’ve got “weapons, massacre” and obviously the days it happened. Facebook is quite prominent on the word cloud, which suggests that social media has had an impact on this as well, as well as “school”, the primary reporting location.

Alistair: Then The Guardian’s Columbine Massacre coverage. When the massacre happened it was the first news story of its kind to create a moral panic towards Gothic sub-cultures and the reporting of this story seemed to set a template for how each individual publication would cover similar stories in the future. The Guardian seems different as it shared the same reporting traits as the other papers covering Columbine, and it’s only in the intervening years it has started taking a more restrained approach. You can see here words like “Goth” and “Marilyn Manson” appear quite prominently.

Peter: Again, it should be pointed out the article will go into far more detail, but clearly as you’ve picked out there are certain words used frequently here that present a certain image of this group of individuals. Obviously they are trying to create this image based on a pre-perceived understanding of who carries out these types of events.

Alistair: Why do you think The Guardian’s approach to reporting these events would have changed over the years?

Peter: I think to a certain extent it’s due to where it’s taken place- Columbine took place in America and we like to pretend we don’t have the same stuff happening over here. Fortunately our gun crime rates are lower over here, which leads our media to become obsessed with the fact America has a gun crime problem and it does, so from a news point of view it’s only right we report that. If we disassociate ourselves from that type of story, it enables us to report it in a different way. If it’s a British school, like the Ann McGuire case, it’s handled more sensitively, but if it’s international there is a preconception it can be more damning in the approach to reporting.

Alistair: In the Independent’s coverage of Columbine, they don’t put as much focus on the Marilyn Manson aspect. Why would you think they don’t cover the “blame the media” aspect as extensively as other newspapers?

Peter: I think if you look at the readership of the papers you are analysing, the Independent is targeted at the highest social class, which I think definitely plays a part in the reporting.

Alistair: The Sun’s coverage of Columbine- what strikes you as different in the most used words?

Peter: Obviously “school” is there, which is to be expected, “Shooting”, “Harris”, which I presume is the name of one of the people and “killers”- so it’s more about getting the audience engaged by adding the human element extensively, as well as using more visceral language to make them picture the atrocities.

Alistair: Two things that strike out at me- as well as Manson, there is “The Matrix” and “Film”, because the gang wore black trenchcoats, which was initially blamed in the media on The Matrix

Peter: Obviously the first time we saw a black trenchcoat was in The Matrix, so we must blame everything on that. Seriously though, lots of numbers and statistics that balances out the human element, but there is more focus on language to get the reader to become angry at the kids and

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angry at the media for influencing the actions. It’s much more emotive than just reporting the hard facts of it.

Alistair: The Daily Mail didn’t make their coverage of Columbine available on their website, but I have their coverage of the Adam Lanza and Ann McGuire cases. What would immediately jump out at you in these word clouds?

Peter: What would immediately jump out at me is the word “seemed” and it’s implying that there is a sense of uncertainty, that we are going to go down this route but cover ourselves by prefacing all our reports by putting that it “seemed” like this individual behaved in this way or it “seemed” like this individual was mentally disturbed beforehand. This creates a sense of uncertainty to allow the audience to put the blame somewhere. It leads the audience down a certain route, one that we can’t say for sure is true or untrue. There are certain words like “family”, “mother”, “teacher”, “friends”, again trying to create a community feeling and make you feel for this poor lady’s family. Yet the other words that are prevalent there are “Facebook”, implying that Facebook has had something to do with it and to a certain extent there was stuff that was put on Facebook that was relevant to the case, but it seems to me to be blaming Facebook for allowing him to post certain things on there. The word “reaper” is trying to scare people almost, suggesting that this person is horrible and mentally scarred and that it’s no surprise he’s out to get you.

Alistair: Also in small letters there is “heavy metal”, “drugs”, “rock music”

Peter: creating the image of a certain type of person who carries out these acts all the time.

Alistair: There was a different Daily Mail article the deputy editor of Kerrang sent me that he found particularly funny of when the court case was happening and they were interviewing students, one said “he was listening to rock and metal all the time and the other kids were listening to Taylor Swift” as a central comment in the article.

Peter: One thing with this case was his identity was protected, so there was a sense of mystery to who he was and what he was like. The press had to be careful and couldn’t say anything, although I know there were places you could go on the internet to find out, as students in my school did know who he was due to Facebook and things like that. It presents another issue of how these crimes are reported as Facebook doesn’t protect the identity in the same way the press does; the press wanted to create an image of somebody without revealing who it was, which is why they had to rely on titbits of information like what music he liked, violent videogames and other stuff they could obtain from his Facebook page. They are trying to create a persona for this person whose name they can’t publish, by giving enough information about his tastes to tell you what he could be like.

George Garner, Email

1) When music sub-cultures are referenced in a negative news article, or are blamed for a traumatic news event, do you think this has a long-standing effect on how that sub-culture is perceived by the general public at large, or is quickly forgotten in order to create the next "moral panic" in the media?

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It’s a very interesting question. On the one hand, so many of the media panics instigated in the news – whether moral or of the ‘false widow spider invasion’ variety – tend to come and go very quickly these days. The Daily Mail’s ‘war on emo’, for instance, was a flash in the pan moral panic. The Daily Mail soon found new targets after claiming MCR’s Black Parade was a ‘celebration of self harm’. These moral panics never last long. There is the sense that these panics are always the same thing: video games, music and films will always be easy targets for moral guardians – it’s only the specific titles/films/bands that change. With that said, however, I think these representations are harmful because they serve to perpetuate and reinforce pre-existing negative stereotypes: namely, the demonization of the non-norm. There is a certain sense in which anything that’s outside of the mainstream culturally these days is ultimately either subsumed into it, or forever cut adrift and treated as different, something to fear or mock. Various subcultures, whether musical or not, have long been on the receiving end of this to different effects. Look at Manson, he was public enemy number 1 – now he’s regular tabloid fodder for who he’s dating, rather than his effect on the youth. What I’m trying to say is this: the moral panics are temporary but the outsider status of subcultures they reinforce are permanent. Negative news articles are simply the tip of the iceberg. You only need look at how Metallica playing Glastonbury was treated by critics – and even by the presenters on TV – to see the bigger picture: even a band who have sold millions and millions of copies are perceived as a threat to established values/traditions.

2) Is it fair to say all news media outlets have previously fallen victim to negatively portraying subcultures, not just the more sensationalised tabloid press?

As a rule, I don’t like to generalise on this. A lot of them do – and as previously discussed – this is often incredibly misleading and is to be treated with contempt. As another rule, however, it’s important that we define what ‘negatively portraying subcultures’ is. There are different levels of this. For instance, when the Guardian investigated whether My Chemical Romance were actually ‘dangerous’ – the answer was at odds with the Daily Mail’s suicide cult assessment. But then the same article was certainly dismissive of the band, it defanged MCR’s perceived threat by poking fun at the fanbase.

When it comes to your specific area of research however – instances where violent crimes have been committed – I do find a big difference between the way something is reported on the BBC, say, than in the Daily Mail. There may still be a level of ignorance, or poor research, but it’s not

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inflammatory. There have been instances, too, where I feel that these negative representations have temporarily been set aside, even in the tabloids. The widespread condemnation of the attack that tragically led to the loss of Sophie Lancaster comes to mind here or the celebration of Stephen Sutton’s (a BMTH fan) charity efforts. But for clarity – negative portrayals of subcultures are a recurring problem across all media outlets; I just don’t think you can tar everyone with the same brush. It would require a case by case assessment of coverage.

3) Has the negative portrayal of gothic subcultures in the media had any effect on your magazine in the past?

It has and for many years. In fact, in April 2012 Kerrang! actually dedicated a whole issue to look at the cultural impact of ‘The War On Emo’. While this was a good 5 years after the initial panic, we found it necessary to open up the discussion again following a spate of horrible crimes targeting fans of alternative music – from fans being killed in Iraq to Mexican gangs looking for goth-looking fans to assault to the Russian, Egyptian, Saudi Arabian and Armenian profiling of ‘emos’. Kerrang! is committed to raising awareness about the persecution of fans not just in the UK, but all around the world.

4) In relation to the recent story about the murder of schoolteacher Ann McGuire by a 15 year old student, do you think it's ever relevant to publish an individuals music taste (or other pop-culture they are a fan of, in this case violent videogames and "emo music") as a suggestion of bad character?

Only insofar as it is essential and thus unavoidable in reporting specific cases. If someone is arrested claiming that a song has influenced them to kill – it is perhaps necessary to report all of the facts specific to an investigation or court case. These cases, notably, are few and far between. For the most part, I think publishing music taste is absolutely needless and genuinely harmful. We see this

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time and time again, from Marilyn Manson at Columbine to Twisted Sister and the Devil Worship panic in the ‘80s to Dan Quayle attacking gangster rap in the early ‘90s. As an example, in the Ann McGuire case, I find the Daily Mail’s statement ‘Unlike other pupils who listened to popular chart music, such as Taylor Swift, the isolated pair enjoyed heavy metal bands and alternative rock.’[1] to be completely irrelevant. What has that got to do with anything? This difference simply implies some sort of underlying sinister capability. If a teenager with a different taste in music murders someone - their love of Taylor Swift is hardly going to make headlines. In the Nick Broomfield documentary of infamous female serial killer Aileen Wuornos it mentions she was a huge fan of Natalie Merchant/10,000 Maniacs. There was no moral panic about Natalie’s music after that because she doesn’t have tattoos or scream. If rock music really did influence people to commit serious crimes we would see that reflected in the criminal statistics. So to be clear: unless an individual’s music taste is directly related to the specific crime or its investigation, I don’t believe, personally, that it’s relevant to publish those details. In fact, at its best it’s lazy; at its worst I’d say it’s irresponsible and potentially harmful.

[1] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2827271/Ann-Maguire-s-schoolboy-killer-tried-talk-girlfriend-Natural-Born-Killers-style-murder-spree.html

Dec Sherry (Email)

Do you think the news media creates (or has in the past created) negative stereotypes towards music sub-cultures (goths, emos,etc.)?

Yes, look at the Daily Mail for example with My Chemical Romance. Most of societies views come from the media, look at how alternative music genres such as metal and hardcore are perceived, hardcore is nearly wholly lyrically based in ethics and social conscious philosophies yet because "moshing" exists, anyone who goes to a show is deemed aggressive and violent, even though they're in a mosh pit to a song that has the lyrics "Minds now free, spirits open to embrace humanity". Punk was always seen negatively, as was rap/hip-hop/urban music

And do you think the news media has created "moral panics" towards these same cultures? (for example, when the Daily Mail called emo a "suicide cult")

Possibly, for example when I went to see Slipknot earlier this year, I was warned to stay safe, even though I'd be to plenty of shows and remained perfectly unscathed. I guess this comes from their depiction as many people are aware of them as they are one of the biggest metal bands going

Do you think journalists understand music sub-cultures? (for example after the Sandy Hook massacre, Adam Lanza was labelled as "the goth killer" for no reason other than he wore black)

I don't think so, the same sort of thing happened with collumbine with Manson, when really Manson wasn't even involved in anyway.

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Do you think it's ever relevant to reference an individual's music (or other pop-culture) taste in news articles? (for example, after the murder of teacher Ann McGuire, it was repeatedly reported that her killer "listened to enter shikari and bring me the horizon")

I could. I remember this story and as a long term fan of both of these bands it was slightly "hilarious" to read. Especially with Enter Shikari who's songs are all about anti-racism, or anti capitalism, or gender equality, social cohesion, the environment etc. If caring for the planet makes you a killer in people's opinions I have no idea what listening to songs about dark topics would bring out in people from that perspective. If someone however campaigned for a cause Shikari bring forward into society, then sure, reference them if the person was a fan.

Have you ever encountered any news content that inaccurately portrays your sub-culture?

I don't personally have a stereotype, as I listen to many generes, but bands I listen to have been slated by the media for various reasons, however this doesn't really affect me, I enjoy the music I listen to regardless of the media's opinions.

Do you think that negative stereotypes created towards sub-cultures are still held by the general public even after their prominence in the news dies down?

I would think so yes, when people are told things by the media, they rarely question it and hold those views as their own, rather naively

Sam Sleight (Email)

1) Do you think the news media creates negative stereotypes, or at least reinforces them?

I think that media does actively create the negative stereotypes, for example the Daily Mail’s ‘War on Emo’ that you reference in Q2. But then through inaction it helps to reinforce them. By not doing any sort of investigative follow up to a knee-jerk reaction to any sort of movement or incident, they don’t actually provide all the facts to a reader/viewer/listener leaving them with a warped sense of the facts for example: On 25th March 2011 there was a murder investigation in Midwest City, Oklahoma, and in the articles following the investigation it was singled out that among the ‘demonic drawings’ and ‘knives [...] daggers’ there was a Slipknot CD, clearly showing the anti-heavy metal fan bias, and trying to imply a link between the band’s music and homicidal tendencies.

(Article I referred to)

http://www.blabbermouth.net/news/report-slipknot-cd-demonic-drawing-seized-during-search-of-homicide-scene/

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2) Do you think it's fair to say the news media has created moral panics towards sub cultures? (The daily mails 'war on emo' for example)

To an extent yes as, while they create the stereotypes as mentioned above, I think the active moral movement against a subculture is fleeting. As mentioned above, the war on emo was incited by My Chemical Romance and a tenuous link to a teenage girl cutting her own wrists. This was referenced by The Sun in an article (Suicide of Hannah; The Secret Emo) on May 8th 2008, and led to uproar from critics calling for the band to be held accountable. However the band continued to tour and sell platinum albums until 2012 when they split up, so it is hard to know how much the negative publicity affected them.

Between August and October of 2014 the bands Behemoth, Cannibal Corpse, and Marilyn Manson had shows cancelled in Poland and Russia through accusation of violent anti-religious sentiment among other things. This follows on from when Behemoth frontman ‘Nergal’ had to appear on trial for burning a bible on-stage.

Article re; MCR

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-564611/Girl-13-hangs-obsessed-Emo-suicide-cult-rock-band.html

Article re; Behemoth, CC and MM

http://www.metalinjection.net/shocking-revelations/polish-behemoth-concert-cancelled-for-political-reasons

3) Do you think the news media understands music sub-cultures?

For the most part, no: This seems to be true for the vast majority of mainstream media, particularly among the tabloid papers, i.e. The Sun and Daily Mail, as well as other music press, NME took a very ‘anti-metal’ stance in the 70s and 80s. I believe this is why we end up with a movement towards more specialist and tailor-made media such as Kerrang!, Metal Hammer, Subterranea etc., as fans or members of certain subgenres/cultures want to find reporting that talks about their community in a fairer light.

There does seem to be some movement among The Guardian towards more accurate representation of rock subcultures as in July 2011 they hired Dom Lawson, a writer at Metal Hammer and Editor-in-Chief of Prog magazine.

4) Do you think it's ever justified to mention an individual's music, or other pop-culture, tastes in news articles? (For example, Columbine killers/ Marilyn Manson)

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Never, just in the same way it is unjustifiable to judge them through their film taste; Silence of the Lambs often seems to turn up in killers’ DVD collections. I think it is as ridiculous as judging a killer by their choice in clothes or footwear. If a person has homicidal tendencies, a mental illness or any other force that leads them to commit a particular crime, it is due to the individual’s circumstance.

The idea amongst lazy journalists seems to be that music is what inspires a person to become aggressive or murderous, but if that were true the 21 million copies of Metallica’s The Black Album that have been sold would have bred a multitude of killers. The music just happens to be a potential personal response for an individual; many find aggressive music to be cathartic and a way of releasing bottled up anger. Phil Anselmo of Pantera stated in the semi-autobiographical song Mouth for War that ‘when [he] channel[s his] hate to productive [he] don’t find it hard to impress’. I think this is a far clearer representation of metal’s influence on the listener.

5) Have you ever encountered any news content that inaccurately portrays your sub culture?

Yes, there is a piece that was written in The Daily Mail in 2013 that I saw on a music site that stated that heavy metal fans ‘tend to have low self-esteem’ which was ‘linked to negative attitudes toward authority’, which seems to be the same argument made about Punk years ago. There are parts of heavy metal subcultures that are strongly anti-authoritarian (Post-punk, Hardcore etc.), however for the most part heavy metal is intended to be an escape, and is generally not anti-authority, simply anti-injustice, i.e. Rage Against the Machine. Even Black Sabbath, who tend to only sing about fantastical ideas and smoking weed, wrote the anti-Vietnam songs War Pigs, Hand of Doom and Electric Funeral, however were never overly critical of, for example, Thatcher or the Royal Family, which were prime targets for punk music.

Though many may not, I personally reject The Mail’s stereotyping as it’s a bit of a ‘tarring with the same brush’ approach.

Daily Mail article

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2500476/Listen-heavy-metal-You-low-self-esteem-Psychologist-reveals-personality-traits-Slipknot-Metallica-fans.html

6) Do you think that negative stereotypes created towards sub-cultures, such as goths after Columbine, are still held by the public or are quickly forgotten when the next moral panic arrives?

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No, I think that though they may not be at the forefront of the media or the public’s thoughts, the negative stereotypes are still prevalent. Generally someone walking down the street would not want to speak to the heavily tattooed person, or someone with a jacket covered in patches, or the teenager wearing eyeliner and ‘copse paint’. I think that for most people loud and fast music is still associated with anger and violence, however I do believe that this is probably a view held by the generation of the 60s/70s/80s and not so much by those born in the 90s/00s.

Word Clouds

The Guardian- all Ann McGuire Stories

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The Guardian: Adam Lanza

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The Guardian: Columbine

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The Independent: Columbine

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The Independent: Adam Lanza

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The Independent: Ann McGuire

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The Sun: Columbine

The Sun: Adam Lanza

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The Sun: Ann McGuire

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The Daily Mail: Adam Lanza

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The Daily Mail: Ann McGuire

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