Violence and Communication

This study explores the relationship between an act of politicized violence and the communicative activity that surrounds it. The author demonstrates how the structure of conflicting public sentiment resembles, mimics, and imitates salient features of the act of attempted assassination itself. Specifically, attacks on public officials reveal prevailing public/cultural bias toward displays of hostility, aggression, conflict, violence and murder, and thereby bring to the surface explicit acknowledgment of whatever undercurrents of murderous urges already exist in public opinion of governmental authority. Of interest to students of communication arts, criminology, journalism, and mass communication.