Media Constructions of Mass Murder-Suicides as Drama: The New York Times' Symbolic Construction of Mass Murder-Suicides

Abstract

Mass murder-suicides immediately shock and horrify the living. These shocking dimensions quickly dissolve, however, as the motives underlying such acts are explored. This paper presents six symbolic and interrelated characteristics, which have consistently reemerged through The New York Times' reporting of mass murder-suicides to not just describe events surrounding these acts but also create a sense of order and cast these acts as a destructive form of human behavior. Ultimately, the reporting of the mass murder-suicides by the Times represents a series of symbolic strategies and critical perspectives that present the mass murder-suicide as both burlesque and grotesque.

Keywords:

• Branch Davidian
• Burlesque
• Grotesque
• Heaven's Gate
• Jonestown
• Mass Murder-Suicide
• Mass Suicide
• The New York Times

Acknowledgments

A earlier version of this paper, “Mass Suicide as a Rhetorical Phenomenon: A Dramatistic Analysis of the Jonestown Killings,” was presented by James W. Chesebro at the annual meetings of the Western National Communication Association convention, Los Angeles, CA, February 1979. Requests for reprints should be addressed to the first author.

Notes

1. This analysis was shaped and guided by media reports of five events: (1) The Jonestown mass murder-suicide of over 900 people in 1978; (2) The death of over 80 Branch Davidian members in 1993; (3) The Solar Temple mass murder-suicide of 74 people in 1994; (4) The death of 39 followers of Heaven's Gate in 1997; and (5) The Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God deaths of over 900 people in 2000. We are convinced that the events and discourses of all five mass murder-suicides support our claims about the symbolic nature of a mass murder-suicide. However, for the purposes of this study, it was decided to restrict the analysis to only an examination of The New York Times' coverage of the Jonestown, Branch Davidian, and Heaven's Gate mass murder-suicides.

In this analysis, we are ultimately discussing the rhetorical conception of a single newspaper of the political elites in the United States. Our effort has been to reflect the views of this political elite as carefully as possible and with as much reliability and validity as possible. Accordingly, we have placed our attention on these three mass murder-suicides, because The New York Times was extremely selective in terms of what mass murder-suicides it has covered, and the degree to which it has covered some mass murder-suicides and not others.

A numeric analysis of The New York Times citations to the five mass murder-suicides in LexisNexis revealed that the Times gave more attention and coverage to some of these events than others: (1) Jonestown, using the search terms of Jonestown or People's Temple or Jim Jones generated a total of 374 Times articles between the years 1978 and 1980 and a total of 504 Times articles between the years 1978 and 2005, although a few of these articles were about a government representative by the name of Jim Jones; (2) Branch Davidian, using the search terms David Koresh or Branch Davidian, generated a total of 297 Times articles between the years 1993 and 1995 and a total of 406 Times articles between the years 1993 and 2005; (3) Heaven's Gate, using the search terms Heaven's Gate or Marshall Herff Applewhite (AND NOT movie was included in this search to eliminate references to the film Heaven's Gate), generated a total of 117 Times articles between the years 1997 and 1999 and a total of 118 Times articles between the years 1997 and 2005; (4) Solar Temple, using the search terms Solar Temple or Luc Jouret or Joseph Di Mambro, generated a total of 36 Times articles between the years 1994 and 1996 and a total of 40 Times article between the years 1994 and 2005; and, (5) Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God, using the search terms Restoration of the Ten Commandments or Joseph Kibwetere or Credonia Mwerinde, generated a total of 19 Times articles between the years 2000 and 2002 and 19 articles between the years 2000 and 2005.

Based solely upon the number of articles published regarding each mass murder-suicide, this numeric analysis suggests that the Jonestown, Branch Davidian, and Heaven's Gate mass murder-suicides were three to twenty-seven times more important to The New York Times than the Solar Temple and Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God mass murder-suicides. Beyond this measure of significance of each of the mass murder-suicides, the specific analyses given to the Jonestown, Branch Davidian, and Heaven's Gate mass murder-suicides by The New York Times allowed them to be used to reveal the kind of rich and particular strategic interpretations provided by The New York Times of mass murder-suicides as symbolic events.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

James W. Chesebro

James W. Chesebro (PhD, University of Minnesota, 1972) is Distinguished Professor of Telecommunications in the Department of Telecommunications, Ball State University, Muncie, IN 47306-0540, USA; E-mail: [email protected].

David T. McMahan

David T. McMahan (PhD, University of Iowa, 2001) is Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication Studies and Theatre, Missouri Western State Univeristy, St. Joseph, MO 64505, USA; Email: [email protected].