I just read an interview with the author of Columbine, David Cullen. Cullen is a journalist as well, and spent an enormous amount of time investigating and also debunking the stories that grew around the day. Here's the interview.
I confess a private interest in the intersections of the human propensity for violence, the continually evolving state of mental health care in the US, and how they interact with school-age kids. This is a bit of a detour from the class material, and I'm not sure how much water it holds, but in a way, the famous "school shootings" of *not all that long ago* made a mark on US culture that's still being figured out.
I've heard people go on and on in both (all?) sides of the issue, blaming music, video games, the internet, etc. And people blaming the kids, the families, the area, etc. But I'd like to analyze for a minute a single vein of the phenomena that followed Columbine (and others).
In some way, can they not be considered to underpin a different era of violence, assisted by digital tech? Don't think that I'm saying "these are the antecedents of trolling!" since they're far, far worse. But look at Megan Meier for one, and Mitchell Henderson - the cyberbullying researchers in here should be able to supply more names - I wonder if there's some sort of link, on some level.
Just an idea to bat around and debate. Oh, and I'm going to read the book. At some point. I'm thinking summer at this rate!
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