Forty Years of School-Assocaited Homicides: A Media Constructed Reality

[Erin]

For those of you who are interested, here is a copy of my thesis for graduate school. The research for this thesis took me nearly a year to complete and then it took another several months to do data analysis and write the paper up.

Anyways, I hope you enjoy it! Warning, it's pretty boring though.

*The forum would not allow me to upload the PDF file directly, as it was too large, so I uploaded it to a free document sharing website called 4shared.com.

To download a pdf copy of my thesis, visit this website:

http://www.4shared.com/file/57123520...__Final_.html?

Once there:
Click "Download Now"

[sarah]

thanks E. I'll try and read that later today.

[Erin]

Thanks!

Seriously though, if you don't or have to quit, I don't blame anyone. It's freaking 68 pages. Sheesh.

[The Lady of Shadows]

erin - i just downloaded it and can't wait to read it. thank you so much for being willing to share this with us.

and by the way, my best friend is a juvenile court probation officer. do you mind if i share it with her?

[valtr0n]

I love your thesis.

But here's the real trouble... actual laws are based and passed successfully on this media constructed idea.

I'm not saying violence isn't an issue, I'm simply saying it isn't as bad as we're told it is. There are some common sense laws, that, while they might not help anything, they're not hurting anyone. But so many people use not necessarily false but misinterpreted information to further an agenda which, while they may believe is helping, is actually hurting our nation as a whole.

<3 Erin.

[Erin]

Sure Turtlesong, I don't mind at all.

And Val, you are dead on.

[The Lady of Shadows]

this may be completely off topic but i was at the hospital having blood work done a few months ago and the tv was on some inane show when the network broke in for a BREAKING NEWS STORY.

they said there had been a school shooting and they didn't really have much information except that two people were hurt and one was presumed dead. they would give us more information as it become available.

after running this same information for three hours. we got the real story. two teachers had left the campus on their break and walked to a small local market. they had purchased beverages and cigarettes and were walking back when a gunman approached them - OFF SCHOOL GROUNDS - and attempted to rob them. the teachers were injured and the gunman was seriously wounded by his own gun (i think someone else got involved).

now how is this a school shooting? they were teachers granted. but they were on their own time, off campus, and it was robber trying to steal a purse at gunpoint.

what the fuck? cnn, msnbc, and fox all reported it.

[Jean]

well, yes, I am afraid this is a little off-topic. Please, if any discussion is to take place, let it happen elsewhere.

Here, however, I congratulate all of us with having such a big piece of Non-Fiction! Please, if anyone wants to comment on it from the point of view of form and style - or even the content if it doesn't take us too far away from what this forum is about - do that!

and, alas, I couldn't load the document; it just pretended to be doing something, and then shut up. I'll try again tomorrow

[Erin]

Hmmm Jean. Do you have an email address? If you'd like to PM it to me, I can send you the document, either in PDF form again, or as a Microsoft Word document. I have it saved both ways.

[valtr0n]

I don't think turtlesong is off-topic at all, technically. Erin's piece is about a media-constructed view of "the rise in school violence." Turtlesong simply gave a good example of that. The media took a story, spun and twisted it, and turned it into something it wasn't at all.

[Jon]

Just wanted to bump this back up as I buried it.

When I get home I will check it out. I haven't time at this point.