AN ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS OF Josie MaryAnne Soules Wood for the degreeof Master of Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies in Speech Communication, Speech Communication, and English presented on July 13, 2001. Title: FindingFantasy: Three Newspapers Tell the Story of Kip Kinkeland Thurston High School. hQh v'r'f Redacted for Privacy On May 21, 1998 Kip Kinkel drove toThurston High School in Springfield, Oregon. Kinkel killedtwo students and wounded another twenty-twostudents. He killed his parents the day before. The shootingsat Thurston High School came on the heels ofa number of prominent school shootings and Kip Kinkelprovoked tremendous attention from the media. In an attempt to understand how themedia told the story of Kip Kinkel and the shootingsat Thurston High School, Ernest G. Bormann's fantasy themeanalysis is used as a critical model. To generate insight intothe rhetorical visions present in the mediacoverage articles from three newspapers, The Register-Guard,The Oregonian and The New York Times, are studied. Fantasy types and themes including characters, settings and plotlines are identified and explored. A literature study provides information about the media and how it functions in telling stories, particularly those focused on crime. The critical evaluation of the fantasy themesand types at work the three newspapers providea number of conclusions. Two rhetorical visions are revealed and discussed. Specific strengths and weaknesses of fantasy theme analysis are also discussed. Finally,a number of future research possibilities are suggested. Finding Fantasy: Three Newspapers Tell the Story of Kip Kinkel and Thurston High by Josie MaryAnne Soules Wood A THESIS submitted to Oregon State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies Presented July 13, 2001 Commencement June 2002 Master of Arts in Interdisiciplinary Studies thesis of Josie MaryAnne Soules Wood presented on July 13, 2001 APPROVED: Redacted for Privacy Major Professor, réresenting Speech Communication Redacted for Privacy Committee Member, representing Speech Communication Redacted for Privacy Commit e Member,represen ing English Redacted for Privacy Chair ckfi(Iepartment of Speech Communication Redacted for Privacy Dean of ,/aduate School I understand that my thesis will become part of the permanent collection of Oregon State University libraries. My signature below authorizes release of my thesis to any reader upon request. Redacted for privacy Josie MaryAnne Souls Wood, Author ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am indebted to many people I would like to extend my sincere thanks for my chair, Dr. Robert Iltis, and the other members of my committee, Dr. Natalie Dollar, Dr. Lisa Ede, and Dr. Jonathan King. I appreciate all of your time, effort, and support. Thank you too to Steve Kunert who generously directed me to sources I needed to start this thesis. Thank you also to Ronda Clemenhagen, who is not only a good friend, but offered technical support at a vital time. Rebekah Schweitzer and Michael Sugihara deserve special thanks for being my writing/library pals. I am also grateful to Eva Payne who offered both proofreading and her perspective. I am also grateful for my many friends, including Clair Warnicke (thanks for always sharing your love of media and deep fried goodness), Linda Miller, Paul Evans, Naomi Suzuki, Chris Munson and Morgan Diment. Loril Chandler, Dixie Ziemer and Kim Strain have my gratitude for always meeting my needs. I would also like to thank my family: my parents, Jim and Becky Soules, my brother, Luke Soules, Jim and Fawnie Wood and Jamie Wood. I am especially grateful for my husband Cord, the love of my life and my best friend. The greatest thanks of all goes to my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page INTRODUCTION .1 ANALYSIS...................... 41 The Settings.................. 53 Springfield................56 Finding Springfield............60 The School................62 The Cafeteria...............65 The Churches...............68 The Funerals...............69 The Courtroom...............72 The Characters................. 74 The Villain................74 Heroes..................86 Beyond Hero and Villain..........90 Faith and Bill Kinkel...........91 Mikael Nickolauson............95 Ben Walker................97 Other Victims...............99 Public Safety Personnel.........101 The Faithful...............104 Other Minor Characters..........106 Kristin Kinkel..............107 The Plotlines................. 109 Tracing a School Shooting........ 109 Trying to Answer the Question: Why'.... 110 Experts' Accounts............ 113 The Crime................ 119 Finding the Fantasy.............. 123 TABLE OF CONTENTS (Continued) Page INTERPRETATION................... 126 Finding the Rhetorical Vision......... 126 The Fantasy of the Good Life Gone Awry . 129 The Fantasy of the Dangerous Boy, Dangerous Place............. 154 Considering the Visions............ 170 CONLCUSIONS.................... 173 Limitations................... 175 Implications for Future Research ........ 188 BIBLIOGRAPHY.................... 192 This thesis is dedicated to the victims of the shootingsat Thurston High School, including those of us who only had our hearts broken, and to the first responders of America who have their hearts broken all too often. Finding Fantasy: Three Newspapers Tell the Story of Kip Kinkel and Thurston High School INTRODUCTION All of us are asleep. By telling stories, we are awakened a Jewish saying Recent school shootings in the US have resulted in what some researchers would probably recognize as moral panics. Moral panic, defined by Stanley Cohen in 1972, serves to reassert the dominance of an established value system at a time of perceived anxiety and crisis. Thompson argues that in the 1980s and 1990s, there was a heightening of social tensions and anxieties revealed by the escalation of media-induced moral panics. Thompsons' list of moral panics includes: baby- battering and child abuse, welfare cheats, raves and youth drug culture, pornography, 'home alone' children, children who murder, violence in schools, and the availability of knives and handguns. While Thompson is primarily writing of moral panics in Great Britain, there seems little doubt that the United States has experienced similar moral panics. Thompson points out that "a frequent refrain accompanying the moral panics is about moral permissiveness, the loss of values, lack 2 of discipline and respect for authority, and loss of responsibility (particularly on the part of women) ." In moral panics, there are always culprits, which can include youths and children. lYIcNair adds that the media's role as "reality-defining" institutions has increased in the case of late-twentieth-century moral panics: They have become synonymous with the public sphere that intermediate zone between governors and the governed where public opinion is formed and reformed. The journalistic media are the main source of our information about politics and public affairs in general (what other sources do we have if we are not political activists?) as well as setting the agenda (55). In the case of recent school shootings in the United States, the elements of a moral panic are all there; the scape-goating, the arguing about thecause, the solution and the question of who is to blame. The perpetrators and the majority of the victims in the school shootings are children. Media coverage of the events has been particularly saturating. The purpose of this study is to investigate the fantasy themes that developed in the media following one school shooting. Specifically, this study will focus on the newspaper 3 coverage surrounding the shootings at Thurston High School in Springfield, Oregon, by Kip Kinkel. The morning after Kinkel killed is parents, he went to school. He took two guns with him. When Kinkel left school that morning, two boys were dead and another twenty-two students were wounded. Springfield joined the ranks of Pearl, Paducha, and Jonesboro as American towns famous for school shootings. Not quite a year later, Columbine joined their ranks. On May 21, 1998, Kinkel catapulted Springfield to the front page of newspapers across the country and brought CNN and every other major network and newsgathering organization to town. The shootings at Thurston High School were NEWS. The violence was worthy of not only presidential comment but also a presidential visit. And it was all worth hundreds of inches of copy. According to The Register-Guard, there were as many as 400 journalists from as far away as Japan and Australia in Springfield two days after the shooting to cover it (Bun, "Some weary of media" 7A) Area hotels were booked to capacity, and one of the local hospitals turned a cafeteria into a room for the media (Bun, "Some weary of media" 7A). The evening of 4 May 21 found US West workers installing 25 temporary phone lines outside the school to provide journalists with the means to file stories and send faxes (Burl, "Community faces blitz" 4C). Springfield, Thurston High, the victims, and Kinkel found themselves the center of massive media attention, something common to the other schools and communities involved in school shootings. By comparison, John Schwartz, a Washington Post reporter who covered the Jonesboro school shootings, for instance, estimates that there were about 100 print and television journalists from around the world waiting outside the courthouse where the two juvenile suspects were going to be arraigned