With the increased social attention to active shooting events in the United States, news outlets are featuring news briefs through social media platforms like Twitter. Using this method of information sharing, news organizations can instantly reach consumers as events unfold in real time. With character limitations with Twitter, one may assume news organizations use words carefully and succinctly to report vital information to the public. By implementing a content analysis of news organization Twitter contributions, messages provided by both legacy and digital native news outlets were evaluated. Using Department of Justice reports specifically covering active shooting events, 32 specific incidents covering the years of 2014-2018 were selected for analysis. This resulted in the identification of over 14,000 individual Tweets. These Tweets were then analyzed using a content analysis to identify overarching themes. Apparent from the onset was the clear priority of news organizations to report on the perpetrators of active shooting events while focusing noticeably less on the victims of these violent events. Further, policy advocation or calls to change current policy was noticeably absent from Twitter discussions. The focus of this paper is to explore the characteristics of emphasized by legacy and digital native news media outlets. This analysis has direct implications on the culture of gun violence, as well as market models which influence the news production process when reporting on active shooting incidents in the United States. / Doctor of Philosophy / Social media has increased in popularity in recent history. The incorporation of social media into a variety of topics, including reporting the news, has also increased. This aim of this study is to evaluate the types of contributions made by news media outlets on the social media platform Twitter. Specifically, this research is focused on Twitter contributions pertaining to active shooting events in the United States between 2014-2018. 32 active shooting events were identified over this period, which includes a collection of more than 14,000 Tweets by news outlets. Priorities of news media outlets were identified by analyzing the content of Tweets. Analysis revealed a significant portion of Tweets characterizing the offender's personal identity, background, and actions while providing sparse reporting on victims in these events. This research provides critical insight into how Twitter is used to report on criminal justice events. Additionally, this study illustrates the ways in which social media is being used to report the news, and how this may differ from traditional methods of news dissemination.

In Greek and Latin historical narratives, Roman armies are repeatedly said to destroy enemy communities, both their physical urban spaces and inhabitant populations. Some ancient authors claim that this conduct was characteristic of the Roman way of war, particularly during the period of the Middle Republic. However, this seemingly prevalent feature of Roman warfare remains poorly understood. Ancient descriptions of urban destruction and mass killing are often vague or formulaic, and rarely indicate how or why this violence took place. Although a few modern studies have examined mass violence in antiquity, the destruction of communities is seldom treated as a distinct category of Roman military action, with its own methods and motives. Furthermore, there has been little effort to explore how ancient armies actually destroyed cities or peoples using pre-modern tools. To redress these gaps in the scholarship, this dissertation aims to demonstrate how and why Roman armies destroyed urban spaces and populations. The project first examines descriptions of urban destruction and mass killing in ancient texts, archaeological and art historical evidence of mass violence, and comparative evidence from other historical periods. The second half of the project investigates individual cases in which Roman commanders attacked and destroyed enemy cities or populations. Case studies allow in-depth examinations of individual events, making it possible to situate episodes of mass violence within a larger set of historical circumstances; this approach highlights the specific causal factors that encouraged Roman military leaders to target enemy communities. Using these methods, this dissertation argues that ancient armies employed demolition and mass arson to destroy urban spaces, and killed populations using cold-blooded mass executions or hot-blooded indiscriminate massacres. Although ancient military forces rarely, if ever, razed entire towns or exterminated whole peoples, even partial destruction required an expenditure of time, labor, and resources. Thus the destruction of communities was not the result of haphazard outburst or violent frenzy, but stemmed from the calculated decisions of military and political leaders. This study further argues that Roman commanders destroyed enemy communities instrumentally, to accomplish a range of goals and objectives. While many Roman commanders employed mass violence strategically, as a response to specific military problems, their political, economic, and personal goals could also motivate destruction and mass killing in war.

In an attempt to understand the micro-dimensional mechanisms of how some individuals come to perpetrate violence against civilians during wartime, this thesis adopts a theory from organisational psychology. By looking at the military as a professional organisation, violence against civilians perpetrated by state armies during wartime is theorised to be the outcome of a process of script error wherein military scripts of non-combatant immunity fail. The theory is applied on the massacre in My Lai, during the Vietnam war. Findings showed that the mechanism of script error did not play out completely as theorised, however that military scripts did dictate behaviour and that a script error was present to some degree as civilians came to be targeted as if they were enemies. Some mechanisms used in previous research on violence against civilians were supported by this study and could also be integrated into the framework of organisational scripts, showing the explanatory value that organisational scripts have to further understand military violence. The study contributes to a deeper understanding of an important historical case, shows the value of introducing organisational psychology into studies of the military organisation and finally helps us further make sense of situations of violent transgression.  organisational scripts, script error, military violence, violence against civilians, mass violence, atrocity, My Lai

Since the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School in Colorado, there have been two-hundred and thirty more school shootings in the United States, not including those that have happened at colleges or universities[1]. This has been a major change that American school systems have been struggling to adapt to, especially since many of the schools were built in the 1950s and 1960s. In the wake of these recurring tragedies, there are strategies that can be followed to not only provide safer schools that will protect students, but also design with empathy in mind. This thesis will examine how architecture can inspire empathy in a school, while also providing a safe learning environment. Specifically, the generator for these design strategies will be a new design for Chelmsford High School, serving grades nine through twelve. This age range is particularly important to serve and inspire, as the average age of a school shooter is sixteen. High schools that inspire empathy will make students more excited to be at school and more interested in taking care of their community and building. The program of this new design will provide and support the education and safety of students, faculty, and staff. It will also act as a beacon where people in the surrounding community can participate in activities outside of school hours. This will foster a connection, and provide a second home for more than just employees and students who use the school on a daily basis. [1] (Goode, 2018)

How do victims of violence perceive blanket amnesties as part of transitional justice mechanisms in war-torn societies? The amnesty law is critical for conflict resolutions and post-conflict reconciliation processes. Governments and third parties use amnesties as a transitional justice instrument to end the violence because it ensures that conflict leaders will accept to engage in peace talks. However, a blanket amnesty restrains the victims’ narratives of past atrocities in the transitional justice process in exchange for peace. The amnesty in Angola illustrates this policy. The attempt to balance past and future avoids the risks of too much truth-telling from breaking peace negotiations. In a situation where peace and justice compete, this paper considers the victims as agents in the process.  To this end, I enquire about the victims’ views about blanket amnesty. To find out, I explore the victims’ perceptions of the blanket amnesty in Angola and their engagement in transitional justice processes through their self-awareness. Specifically, how they apprehend their capabilities and social-political environment opportunities to change. For this purpose, I used Bandura’s self-efficacy theory of human agency to glean the victims’ consciousness of the political environment and capabilities. I argue that the victims’ self-efficacy level determines their perceptions of blanket amnesty and engagement as part of the transitional justice process that inflicts such an overwhelming impact on their lives. This study offers a micro-level interdisciplinary perspective to the transitional justice study field.

Recent research following mass shooting events has examined those individuals directly affected by the violence and the impact of the shooting on the whole community. This chapter reviews literature regarding the prevalence of adjustment difficulties among individuals in mass‐shooting‐ affected communities. Emerging research supports that a number of individuals with less severe or even no direct exposure to a mass shooting event may experience adjustment difficulties, including anxiety, depression, and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms, and, further, that chronic adjustment difficulties can develop. The chapter discusses predictors of adjustment difficulties following mass shootings including the role of preshooting vulnerability, shooting‐related exposure and loss, and postshooting experiences. It considers the possibility that mass shooting events may represent opportunities for positive changes in individuals’ functioning. Finally, the chapter explores research regarding how the community itself may be altered by a mass shooting including changes in community solidarity, identity, and sense of safety within the community.

Based on Hobsbawm’s notion of “invented traditions,” this thesis argues that the Serbian warrior tradition, the hajduk, was formalised from the folk oral epic tradition into official state practices. Using reports from the Balkan Wars of 1912-1913, military histories of Yugoslavia’s Second World War, and case files from the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), this thesis shows how the hajduk epics were used to articulate war programs and formations, to construct perpetrator and victim identities, and to help encourage and justify the levels of violence during the Yugoslav wars of succession, 1991-1995. The thesis shows how the formalising of the invented hajduk tradition made the epics an important part of political and military mobilisation for at least the last two centuries. During Serbia’s modernisation campaign in the nineteenth century, the epic hajduk traditions were codified by Serbian intellectuals and fashioned into national stories of heroism. While cleansing territories of undesirable populations during the Balkan Wars of 1912-1913, the hajduks were portrayed in the tradition of nation builders by the Kingdom of Serbia. The hajduk tradition was also mobilised as Nazi Germany invaded Yugoslavia in 1941, with both Draža Mihailović’s Četniks and Tito’s Partisans appropriating the historic guerrilla tradition. During the “re-traditionalisation” period under Slobodan Milošević in the 1980s, the invented hajduk tradition was again mobilised in the service of war. As Bosnian Muslim bodies were flung from the Mehmed Sokolović Bridge in Višegrad in 1992, the Serbian perpetrators dreamed of themselves as avenging hajduks thus justifying a modern ethnic cleansing. / Graduate

Cette recherche prend comme point de départ la lecture de textes émanant de deux aires socio-culturelles différentes : le Rwanda et le Guatemala. Issus de narrations de femmes, publiés à partir des années 1980, ils font acte de témoignage d’un événement : le génocide des Tutsis au Rwanda et les violences de masse au Guatemala.Les récits sont mis à l’épreuve du genre littéraire et du genre comme construction socio-culturelle.Le volume aborde, pour commencer, les aspects historico-esthétiques de la représentation littéraire des violences du XXe siècle en Europe et aux Amériques. Il reconstitue l’histoire et les enjeux de la problématique contemporaine du témoignage. Mais encore, à travers l’analyse des différentes éditions des témoignages de Rigoberta Menchú et de Yolande Mukagasana, les dualités communes vrai/faux, fiction/réalité sont questionnées au sein du régime discursif du témoignage.Prenant appui sur la conception dynamique de la lectureécriture 1 pour appréhender l’objet discursif – paratexte, texte et leurs instances symboliques – l’étude s’attache à dévoiler les mécanismes propres aux processus de signification au travers de possibles interprétations.1 Milagros Ezquerro, Leerescribir., México; Paris, Rilma 2!: ADEHL, 2008 / This study takes as its starting point the close reading of texts from two different socio-cultural areas: Rwanda and Guatemala. These female narratives published from the 1980s onwards bear witness to particular events: the Tutsi genocide in Rwanda and mass violence in Guatemala.Stories are examined through the prism of the literary genres of testimonio and témoignage, as well as through an understanding of gender as a socio-cultural construction.This research deals firstly with the historic and aesthetic aspects of literary representations of violence during the 20th century in Europe and the Americas. Itinvestigates the history of and contemporary concerns about ‘eye witness accounts’* ‘testimony’. Further, through the study and analysis of various editions of the testimonies of Rigoberta Menchú and Yolande Mukagasana, it questions the common dualities of true/false, fiction/reality in the discursive regime of the testimony. Based on the dynamic conception of readingwriting1 to comprehend the discursive object – paratext, text and their symbolic representations – this research aims to unveil the mechanisms at work in the signification process through various interpretations.1 Milagros Ezquerro, Leerescribir., México; Paris, Rilma 2: ADEHL, 2008.

Ce mémoire porte sur le rôle de l’idéologie dans le phénomène de la violence de masse en contexte colonial. Au 19e siècle, les campagnes de contre-insurrection visant à écraser les révoltes contre les Empires ont souvent pris pour cible les civils. En Inde, durant la révolte des cipayes de 1857, des milliers d’Indiens non-combattants ont été tués par les troupes britanniques en réponse à l’insurrection. Dans cette recherche, on tente de voir quel a été le rôle de l’idéologie dans ce type de phénomène. Au niveau théorique, on propose d’approfondir la compréhension du lien entre discours idéologique et pratique violente. S’il est difficile de vérifier empiriquement si l’idéologie fournit de véritables motivations à commettre le meurtre, on peut tout de même la concevoir comme un vecteur de légitimation de la violence au sein des groupes armés. Au niveau empirique, on propose une étude de cas en contexte colonial à partir de la théorie de Leader Maynard sur les formes idéologiques de légitimation de la violence. L’analyse de discours de militaires britanniques sur le terrain durant la répression de la révolte des cipayes a permis d’identifier certaines particularités idéologiques pouvant venir enrichir la théorie. On constate une tension dans le discours colonial entre les supposés bienfaits qu’apporterait le colonialisme aux sujets colonisés, et le besoin de faire sens de leur destruction en contexte d’insurrection. En résumé, cette analyse dresse un portrait des différentes formes discursives liées à la violence, tout en clarifiant leur rôle dans ces dynamiques destructrices menant aux meurtres indiscriminés de non-combattants. / This study is about the role of ideology in mass violence within colonial context. In the 19th century, counter-insurrection campaigns aiming to put down colonial revolts and mutinies against Empires have often targeted civilians. In India, during the Indian Mutiny of 1857, thousands of non-combatants have been killed in answer to the insurrection. In this study, we look at the role of ideology in that kind of colonial atrocities. Theoretically, we try to clarify the link between ideology and violent practices on the ground. We argue that ideological analysis can gain explanatory force by putting aside, without refuting it, the idea of ideology as a motivation to kill. Instead, we conceptualize it as a collective phenomenon that engages the legitimation of violence within armed groups. Empirically, a case study in a colonial context is proposed from Leader Maynard's theory of the ideological mechanisms that can legitimize violence. The discourse analysis of soldiers on the ground during the Indian Mutiny has permitted to identify some ideological particularities that can enrich this theory. We point out a tension in the colonial discourse between the supposed benefits of colonialism brought to the colonial subjects, and the need to make sense of their destruction in a context of insurrection. In summary, this analysis draws a portrait of the different discursive forms related to violence, while clarifying their role in these destructive dynamics leading to the indiscriminate killings of noncombatants.

This thesis investigates depictions in the Kurdish media (Rudaw and Firat News Agency (ANF)) of mass violence perpetrated against Kurdish civilians in northern and northeastern Syria – an area known to Kurds as Rojava – in recent years. Articles from two media organizations were subject to mixed-method text analysis (quantitative and qualitative) to uncover how mass violence was portrayed. The theory of framing in the media is used to show how violence is committed and what role ideology plays in this process. It is subsequently used in order to uncover commonly used frames for the roles played by various actors involved in mass violence. Hence, a comparison is made between the contents of the two media institutions. The results primarily relate to the role of ideology in the coverage of mass violence by the selected Kurdish media outlets, which are affiliated with two major Kurdish political parties, one left-leaning and one right-leaning. Findings revealed different aspects of mass violence, governed principally by nationalist and partisan orientations. Nationalist agendas played a significant role in Rudaw’s content and a smaller one in ANF’s. Partisan agendas had roughly the same magnitude in both, and the two outlets clashed politically but met nationalistically in many areas. The research questions were addressed through a content analysis of tens of stories disseminated by both Kurdish media organizations during the same time-space.