Skip to main content
Intended for healthcare professionals
Free access
Research article
First published online July 4, 2011

Soundtrack of the School Shootings: Cultural Script, Music and Male Rage

Tomi Kiilakoski and Atte OksanenView all authors and affiliations
Volume 19, Issue 3
https://doi.org/10.1177/110330881101900301

Abstract

School shootings have had an enormous cultural impact on discussions about youth worldwide. Studies on school shootings have not yet considered the complex nature of youth subcultures, often blaming particular subcultures or cultural products. This article analyzes how school shooters use different cultural products including books, films and, especially, music. The interest lies in examining how particular cultural products are woven into the fabric of the cultural script of school shootings. The music of 46 videos left by the Finnish Jokela High School shooter is analyzed in the context of the cultural script of the shootings. School shooters are not only fascinated by previous shootings but are also fans of similar cultural products. Music is actively used as a reference. Shooters actively searched for lyrics that enforce the idea of revolutionary violence. Internet videos offered a channel for shooters to interact with other people.
1. Both authors have contributed equally to this article.
2. Later, the Sturmgeist band reflected the Jokela school shooting on their Manifesto Futurista album (2009). The song Sturmgeist89 does not betray any sympathy for the killings: ‘Why did you do it/You bloody moron/Put an end to your problems/By killing innocents…Sturmgeist89/Why did you do it?’
3. Auvinen used existential jargon which emphasizes the role of authentic individual choice and does not put much emphasis on social settings. This is clearly exemplified in his video Random Thoughts Again (0.25–0.38) under the title Life: ‘Life is something that an individual wants and determines it to be. And I…I’m the dictator of my own life’. The individual ethos fits well within a script that emphasizes a strong existential commitment to one’s own choices.
4. The original video of Burn includes harsh criticism of American consumer society. Images of nature films are linked to both nostalgic images of childhood and domestic violence (Toth, 1997).

References

Benjamin, Walter (1921/1986) ‘Critique of Violence’, in Reflections: Essays, Aphorisms, Autobiographical Writings, pp. 277–300. New York: Schocken Books.
Google Scholar
Bennett, Andy and Kahn-Harns, Keith (eds) (2004) After Subculture: Critical Studies in Contemporary Youth Culture. London: Palgrave MacMillan.
Google Scholar
Boehlert, Eric (1999) ‘An Old Debate Emerges in Wake of School Shooting: Manson, KMFDM, RIAA React to Reports of Music-Violence Connection’, Rolling Stone 22.4.1999, URL (consulted May 2011): http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/an-old-debate-emerges-in-wake-of-shooting-19990422
Google Scholar
Bondü, Rebecca and Scheithauer, Herbert (2009) ‘School Shootings in Deutschland: Aktuelle Trends zur Prävention vor schwerer, zielgericheter Gewalt an deutschen Schulen (School Shootings in Germany: Current Trends in Preventing Severe Targeted Violence in German Schools)’, Praxis der Kinderpsychologie und Kinderpsychiatrie 58(9): 685–701.
Google Scholar
Butler, Judith (1999) Gender Trouble. London: Routledge.
Google Scholar
Cullen, Dave (2009) Columbine. London: Old Street Publishing.
Google Scholar
Dalsgaard, Anne Line, Franch, Mónica and Scott, Russell Parry (2008) ‘Dominant Ideas, Uncertain Lives: The Meaning of Youth in Recife’, in Karen Tranberg Hansen (ed.) Youth and the City in the Global South, pp. 49–73. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Google Scholar
Debord, Guy (1967/1992) La Société du Spectacle [Society of the Spectacle]. Paris: Gallimard.
Google Scholar
Deleuze, Gilles (2004) Desert Islands and Other Texts 1953–1974. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Google Scholar
DeNora, Tia (2006) ‘Music and Self-Identity’, in Andy Bennett, Barry Shank and Jason Toynbee (eds) Popular Music Studies Reader, pp. 141–47. London and New York: Routledge.
Google Scholar
Diepstraten, Isabelle, du Bois-Reymond, Manuela and Vinken, Henk (2006) ‘Trendsetting Learning Biographies: Concepts of Navigating through Late-modern Life and Learning’, Journal of Youth Studies 9(2): 175–93.
Google Scholar
Fast, Jonathan (2008) Ceremonial Violence: A Psychological Explanation of School Shootings. Woodstock and New York: Overlook Press.
Google Scholar
Ford, Simon (1999) Wreckers of Civilisation: The Story of COUM Transmissions & Throbbing Gristle. London: Black Dog.
Google Scholar
Fornäs, Johan (1995) Cultural Theory and Late Modernity. London, Thousand Oaks and New Delhi: SAGE.
Google Scholar
Frith, Simon (1996): Performing Rites: On the Value of Popular Music. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Google Scholar
Gelder, Ken and Thornton, Sarah (eds) (1997) The Subcultures Reader. London: Routledge.
Google Scholar
Gibbs, Nancy and Roche, Timothy (1999) ‘The Columbine Tapes’, Time, 20 December, URL (Consulted September, 2010): http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,992873-1,00.html
Google Scholar
Giroux, Henry A. (2008) Against the Terror of Neoliberalism. Boulder: Paradigm.
Google Scholar
Grossberg, Lawrence (1986) ‘Teaching the Popular’, in Cary Nelson (ed.) Theory in the Classroom, pp. 177–200. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press.
Google Scholar
Grossberg, Lawrence (1992) ‘Is There a Fan in the House? The Affective Sensibility of Fandom’, in Lisa A. Lewis (ed.) The Adoring Audience: Fan Culture and Popular Media, pp. 50–65. London and New York: Routledge.
Google Scholar
Gunn, Joshua (1999) ‘Marilyn Manson Is Not Goth: Memorial Struggle and the Rhetoric of Subcultural Identity’, Journal of Communication Inquiry 23(4): 408–31.
Google Scholar
Hakala, Salli (2009) Koulusurmat verkostoyhteiskunnassa: Analyysi Jokelan Kauhajoen kriisien viestinnästä. [School Shootings in the Network Society: An Analysis of the Communication in Jokela and Kauhajoki Crises]. Helsinki: University of Helsinki, Communications Research Centre.
Google Scholar
Harris, Eric (1999) ‘Journal’, URL (consulted 9, 2010): http://www.davecullen.com/columbine/columbine-guide/journals/eric-journal-main.htm. See also transcribed version by Peter Langman, URL (consulted 9, 2010): http://www.schoolshooters.info/eric-harris-journal.pdf
Google Scholar
Henry, Stuart (2009) ‘School Violence Beyond Columbine. A Complex Problem in Need of an Interdisciplinary Analysis’, American Behavioral Scientist 52(9): 1246–65.
Google Scholar
Hoffmann, Jens, Roshdi, Karoline and Robertz, Frank (2009) ‘Zielgerichtete schwere Gewalt und Amok an Schulen. Eine empirische Studie zur Prävention schwerer Gewalttaten’ [Severe Targeted Violence and Running Amok in Schools. Empiric Study about Prevention of Severe Violence], Kriminalistik 25(4): 196–204.
Google Scholar
Investigation Commission of the Jokela School Shooting (2009) Jokela School Shooting on 7 November 2007. Report of the Investigation Commission. Helsinki: Ministry of Justice. Publication.
Google Scholar
Johnson, Bruce and Cloonan, Martin (2009) Dark Side of the Tune: Popular Music and Violence. Surrey and Burlington: Ashgate.
Google Scholar
Kellner, Douglas (2003) Media Spectacles. London and New York: Routledge.
Google Scholar
Kellner, Douglas (2008) Guys and Guns Amok: Domestic Terrorism and School Shootings from the Oklahoma City Bombing to the Virginia Tech Massacre. London: Boulder.
Google Scholar
Kincheloe, Joe L. (2004) Critical Pedagogy Primer. New York: Peter Lang.
Google Scholar
Larkin, Ralph W. (2007) Comprehending Columbine. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Google Scholar
Larkin, Ralph W. (2009) ‘The Columbine Legacy: Rampage Shootings as Political Acts’, American Behavioral Scientist 52 (9): 1309–26.
Google Scholar
Lee, Jason (2009) Celebrity, Pedophilia, and Ideology in American Culture. Amherst, New York: Cambria Press.
Google Scholar
Markle, Gail (2008) ‘Can Women have Sex Like a Man? Sexual Scripts in Sex and the City’, Sexuality and Culture 12(1): 45–57.
Google Scholar
Martin, Jay (1988) Who Am I This Time? Uncovering the Fictive Personality. New York and London: W.W. Norton.
Google Scholar
McRobbie, Angela and Thornton, Sarah (1995) ‘Rethinking “Moral Panic” for Multi-Mediated Social Worlds’, The British Journal of Sociology 46(4): 559–74.
Google Scholar
Monroe, Alexei (2005) Interrogation Machine: Laibach and NSK. Cambridge Massachusetts and London: The MIT Press.
Google Scholar
Mureck, Carla (1990) ‘Die Hölle ist da, feiern wir das wärmende Feuer’: Zur Musik der Industrial Culture, Destroyed Music, Krach- und Geräusch-Music’ (Hell is Here—Let’s Have a Party in the Heat: On Industrial Culture, Destroyed Music and Noise Music)’, in Andrea Hoffmann and Kim Riemann (eds) Partitur der Träume. über Musik un Klänge, pp. 128–49. Tübingen: Konkursbuch.
Google Scholar
National Bureau of Investigation (2008) Jokelan koulusurmien esitutkintapöytäkirja (Pre-Trial Investigation Report of the Jokela School Killings). Helsinki: National Bureau of Investigation.
Google Scholar
Newman, Katherine S., Fox, Cybelle, Harding, David J., Mehta, Jal and Roth, Wendy (2004) Rampage: The Social Roots of School Shootings. New York: Basic Books.
Google Scholar
Newman, Katherine and Fox, Cybelle (2009) ‘Repeat Tragedy: Rampage Shootings in American High School and College Settings, 2002–2008’, American Behavioral Scientist 52(9): 1286–308.
Google Scholar
Plasketes, George (1999) ‘Things to do in Littleton When You’re Dead: A Post-Columbine Collage’, Popular Music and Society 23(3): 9–24.
Google Scholar
Platz, J. (2004) ‘Die ’schwarze’ Musik’ (The Music of the Goth/Dark Scene in Germany), in A. Schmidt and K. Neumann-Brau (eds) Die Welt der Gothics: Spielräume duster konnotierten Transzendenz, pp. 253–84. Wiesbaden: Vs Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften.
Google Scholar
Reynolds, Simon (2005) Rip It Up and Start Again: Post-punk 1978–84. London: Faber and Faber.
Google Scholar
Rutledge, Carolyn M., Rimer, Don and Scott, Micah (2008) ‘Vulnerable Goth Teens: The Role of Schools in this Psychosocial High-Risk Culture’, Journal of School Health 78(9): 459–64.
Google Scholar
Schmidt, Gunter (2007) The Never-ending Conversation: Two Interviews, in Michael Kimmel (ed.) The Sexual Self: The Construction of Sexual Scripts, pp. 265–88. Nashville, Tennessee (US): Vanderbildt University Press.
Google Scholar
Siegel, Carol (2005) Goth’s Dark Empire. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.
Google Scholar
Sillantaus, Teppo (2008) ‘Toisessa maailmassa’ (In Another World), Helsingin Sanomat, Kuukausiliite, December 2008, pp. 34–40.
Google Scholar
Toth, Csaba (1997) ‘Like Cancer in the System’, in Christoph Grunenberg (ed.) Gothic: Transmutations of Horror in Late Twentieth Century Art, pp. 90–80. Boston: The Institute of Contemporary Art and The MIT Press.
Google Scholar
Twenge, Jean M. and Campbell, W. Keith (2003) ‘‘‘Isn’t it Fun to Get the Respect that We’re Going to Deserve?” Narcissism, Social Rejection, and Aggression’, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 20(2): 261–72.
Google Scholar
Vale, V. and Juno, Andrea (eds) (1983) The Industrial Music Handbook, San Francisco: Re/Search Publications.
Google Scholar
Watson, Justin (2002) Martyrs of Columbine: Faith and the Politics of Tragedy. New York: Palgrave.
Google Scholar
Webber, Julie A. (2003) Failure to Hold: The Politics of School Violence. Lanham, Boulder, New York and Oxford: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers Inc.
Google Scholar
Wilkinson, Deanna and Patrick J. Carr (2008) ‘Violent Youth’s Responses to High Level of Community Violence: What Violent Events Reveal about Youth Violence’, Journal of Community Psychology 36(8): 1026–51.
Google Scholar
Wilson, Scott (2008) Great Satan’s Rage: American Negativity and Rap/metal in the Age of Supercapitalism. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press.
Google Scholar
Wright, Robert (2000) ‘‘‘I’d Sell You Suicide”: Pop Music and Moral Panic in the Age of Marilyn Manson’, Popular Music 19(3): 365–85.
Google Scholar
Young, Robert and West, Patrick (2006) ‘Prevalence of Deliberate Self Harm and Attempted Suicide within Contemporary Goth Youth Subculture: Longitudinal Cohort Study’, British Medical Journal 332(7549): 1058–61.
Google Scholar
Žižek, Slavoj and Herscher, Andrew (1997) ‘Everything Provokes Fascism: An Interview with Slavoj ŽiŽek’, Assemblage 33(August): 58–63.
Google Scholar
Žižek, Slavoj (2005) ‘Foreword: They Moved the Underground’, in Alexei Monroe (ed.) Interrogation Machine: Laibach and NSK, pp. xi–xvi. Cambridge Massachusetts and London: The MIT Press.
Google Scholar
Žižek, Slavoj (2008) In Defence of Lost Causes. London: Verso.
Google Scholar

Cite article

Cite article

Cite article

OR

Download to reference manager

If you have citation software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice

Share options

Share

Share this article

Share with email
EMAIL ARTICLE LINK
Share on social media

Share access to this article

Sharing links are not relevant where the article is open access and not available if you do not have a subscription.

For more information view the Sage Journals article sharing page.

Information, rights and permissions

Information

Published In

Volume 19, Issue 3
Pages: 247 - 269
Article first published online: July 4, 2011
Issue published: August 2011

Keywords

  1. School shootings
  2. violence
  3. music
  4. media
  5. subcultures

Rights and permissions

Request permissions for this article.

Authors

Affiliations

Tomi Kiilakoski
Finnish Youth Research Network, Finland
View all articles by this author
Atte Oksanen
School of Social Sciences and Humanities at the University of Tampere, Finland
View all articles by this author

Metrics and citations

Metrics

Journals metrics

This article was published in YOUNG.

VIEW ALL JOURNAL METRICS

Article usage*

Total views and downloads: 4500

*Article usage tracking started in December 2016

Altmetric

See the impact this article is making through the number of times it’s been read, and the Altmetric Score.
Learn more about the Altmetric Scores


Articles citing this one

Receive email alerts when this article is cited

Web of Science: 37 view articles Opens in new tab

Crossref: 46

  1. Social media and anti-immigrant prejudice: a multi-method analysis of ...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  2. Pathways to School Shooting Subculture: Re-thinking Theory Across Stra...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  3. The Social Autopsy
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  4. Online Harmful Content: A Study on Violent Fan Communities on Social M...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  5. ‘What is this ISIS all about?’ Addressing violent extremism with stude...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  6. PROTOCOL: Hate online and in traditional media: A systematic review of...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  7. Blazing Hate into the World: Psychological Case Study of a Fame-Seekin...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  8. Violence in the School Shooting Film
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  9. Columbine Subculture as a Threat to Information Security
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  10. Mass Media's Negative Narratives
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  11. The Columbine (School Shooting): Essence, Legal Qualifications, Forens...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  12. Followers of School Shooting Online Communities in Russia: Age, Gender...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  13. Culturally independent risk factors of school and campus rampages: An ...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  14. Figures of youth: on the very object of Youth Studies
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  15. The role of moral reasoning & personality in explaining lyrical prefer...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  16. Assessing the Substance and Risk of Student Rampage Threats
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  17. The bullying-school shooting nexus: Bridging master narratives of mass...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  18. References
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  19. Female Involvement in School Rampage Plots
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  20. Blurred Boundaries of Lone-Actor Targeted Violence: Similarities in th...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  21. Global Online Subculture Surrounding School Shootings
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  22. Becoming metal: narrative reflections on the early formation and embod...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  23. Exposure to Online Hate in Four Nations: A Cross-National Consideratio...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  24. Vermittlungskulturen von Amokläufen: Eine Einleitung
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  25. Phantasien absoluter Gewalt – Ein kriminologischer Blick auf Berichter...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  26. Der schmale Grat zwischen Leid und Entertainment – Berichterstattung f...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  27. Broadening campus threat assessment beyond mass shootings
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  28. School shooting threats as a national phenomenon: comparison of police...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  29. Coping with Tragedy, Reacting to an Event...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  30. Glamorizing rampage online: School shooting fan communities on YouTube
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  31. Social media as a vector for youth violence: A review of the literatur...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  32. Stories in action: the cultural influences of school shootings on the ...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  33. Social responses to collective crime: Assessing the relationship betwe...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  34. Expressions and Projections of Evil in Mass Violence
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  35. Exzessive individuelle Gewalt. „School Shootings“ und „Lone Wolf Terro...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  36. School Shootings: Conceptual Framework and International Empirical Tre...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  37. School Shootings as Mediatized Violence
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  38. Revolution of the Dispossessed: School Shooters and their Devotees on ...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  39. On the Relevance of Phantasy for the Genesis of School Shootings
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  40. Jokela: The Social Roots of a School Shooting Tragedy in Finland
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  41. Violence and School Shootings
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  42. Adolescents expressing school massacre threats online: something to be...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  43. Appendix A
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  44. Media Dynamics in School Shootings: A Socialization Theory Perspective
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  45. Media Consumption in German School Shooters
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  46. Media Participation of School Shooters and their Fans: Navigating betw...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar

Figures and tables

Figures & Media

Tables

View Options

View options

PDF/ePub

View PDF/ePub

Get access

Access options

If you have access to journal content via a personal subscription, university, library, employer or society, select from the options below:

Alternatively, view purchase options below:

Purchase 24 hour online access to view and download content.

Subscribe to this journal

Access journal content via a DeepDyve subscription or find out more about this option.

Start 2 week free trial
Need help?
Download PDF

Also from Sage