Presenting Thesis Chapter on the NIU Shootings and Online Responses

Today I'm presenting a newly finished draft of a chapter of my master's thesis on Social Networking Sites responses to the NIU Shootings.  Here's my fancy Google Presentation if you'd like to check it out:

There's also a preliminary investigation of the topic over at Pop + Politics. A longer draft is coming on Monday as well.

Mediated Mourning?

I've been collecting all my notes on various academic works I'll be working with in my thesis, but in particular I love the complexity of Harriet F. Senie's "Mourning in Protest: Spontaneous Memorials and the Sacralization of Public Space." She deals with identity and the collective at the spaces of violent events in the article and it is fantastic. Here's a short quote:

Although, perhaps even because, public experience in our culture has been rendered private by television and the internet, many of us feel an overwhelming need to make real what is increasingly mediated - to recapture the here and now. To stand on the ground where something happened is to feel the reality of the event - to feel meaningfully linked to others and to history.

To some degree, Senie is correct - when these events are mediated the public reaches out and tries to connect somehow whether that's through donating money, collecting goods, making a pilgrimage, leaving an object at the physical site, etc. We experiencing mourning as something to act upon: we need to take action and just do something. However, I believe Senie alludes to the idea that media remove us from mourning and make it private. In my research, particularly with the online mourning community surrounding the NIU shootings, I see the complete opposite where people are finding online publics like Facebook to connect with other mourners without actually interacting in a physical space. However, they are making "real" what is increasingly mediated - but through the means of mediation. The profile picture changing, the mourning group joining, all the other new media production around the tragedy signals that the public is using the mediating technologies to become meaningfully linked to one another and to the history of this event. After all, isn't the Internet one big database with lots of joined tables?

An in depth look at the Northern Star at NIU

Fresh Cut has a great video documenting how NIU's student run paper, the Nothern Star operated the day after the shooting. Apparently they knew who the shooter was before CNN and utilized Facebook to gather information about the victims.

NIU community successful in blocking WBC protests

Looks like the groups that utilized Facebook and other social networking sites were able to band together with local law enforcement to avoid any major confrontation at one of the NIU victim's funerals:

"When this is what you do as your hobby, as your leisure time, this is what you spend your money on," said Paulette Phelps, daughter-in-law of Fred Phelps, pastor of the Westboro Baptist Church. "This is our vacation. This is our fun time."

In spite of their inflammatory signs, including one that read, "God sent the shooter," their protest took place almost without incident.

The only exception was when a mourner shouted at the protesters from behind a police barricade before being led away by police.

The presence of several dozen police officers from departments throughout the county seemed to effectively prevent any confrontations between the Westboro Baptist Church and mourners.

A row of St. Charles snowplows formed a physical and highly visible barrier between the park where the protesters were assembled and the east entrance of the church.

About 40 officers from the Kane County Mobile Task Force, in riot gear, stood guard around the park to protect the mourners from the protesters.

"They have the ability to express their freedom of speech," St. Charles Police Chief James Lamkin said. "We wanted to make sure there was nothing that would disrespect the funeral."

About 15 students from around the suburbs were on hand to express their disgust for the protesters' message.

Read more.

Article on Pop + Politics

I'm completely flattered to be asked by Pop + Politics to comment on the NIU shootings last week and how mourning has manifested on social networking sites. Its a fantastic blog with some really wonderful news and writers. Here's an excerpt from my article:

Activism also plays into online memorials, perhaps more intensely than it does for physical memorials. Nearly all of the Facebook and MySpace memorials address the Westboro Baptist Church’s announcement that “God sent the Shooter…WBC will picket their hypocritical funerals & memorials & "vigils."” WBC pickets many vigils, memorials, funerals and public gatherings in response to mass tragedy and loss such as the funerals of soldiers, hate crime victim Matthew Shepard and other school shootings because the church sees these events as God’s “Wrath & Vengeance Against an Ungrateful Nation that has Forsaken Him & Embraced Filthy Fags.” In response, there was a call from members connected to the Facebook and MySpace memorials to set up a counter-protest and later promote when and where the counter-protests would take place: