Reaction Rhetorics: Targeted Violence and Public Security
Open Access
- Author:
- Serber, Bradley Allen
- Graduate Program:
- Communication Arts and Sciences
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- July 07, 2016
- Committee Members:
- Rosa A Eberly, Dissertation Advisor/Co-Advisor
Stephen Howard Browne, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
Jeremy Engels, Committee Member
Kirtley Hasketh Wilson, Committee Member
Greg Eghigian, Outside Member - Keywords:
- targeted violence
stasis theory
publics theory
public memory
rhetorics of violence - Abstract:
- This dissertation explores how members of various publics respond to “targeted violence,” a broad term that encompasses a variety of attacks in which an individual, pair, or small group attacks as many people as possible in a public place. Building upon Albert O. Hirschman’s The Rhetoric of Reaction and contemporary versions of classical stasis theory, the project develops an anatomy of arguments that people have made in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, the Boston Marathon bombing, and the Isla Vista attack (#YesAllWomen). The chapter on the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting advances the concept of a rhetorical void, which describes the space into which arguments about guns, mental illness, and school security disappear after conversations about them reach impasses. The chapter on the Boston Marathon bombing focuses on a metaphorical version of heterotopic ossification, a painful medical condition caused by traumatic injury, in which a bone grows and calcifies in a place other than where it should be. The chapter on the Isla Vista attack explores two ideas—viral emptiness and empty virality—both of which refer to the role that social media play in shaping how their users understand and respond to targeted violence. As a whole, this project attempts to sever the link between the causes of targeted violence, which may not be knowable, and efforts to prevent it, which may not be achievable. By doing so, it explores alternatives to both succumbing to an all-consuming paranoia and burying our heads in the sand.