Searching for a Demon

by Chermak, Steven M.

• ISBN13: 9781555535414
• ISBN10: 1555535410
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-11-07
• Publisher: Northeastern Univ Pr

Summary

This provocative volume thoroughly examines the ways in which the media demonized militia groups following the devastating bombing of the Alfred F. Murrah building in Oklahoma City. Using quantitative and qualitative research methods, Steven M. Chermak offers a fresh perspective on how news coverage and popular entertainment transformed a largely overlooked movement into a symbol for this new threat of domestic terrorism and ignited a national panic over the "militia menace." Searching for a Demon describes the representation of the militia movement in the news media, editorial cartoons, films, and television. Chermak delves into such topics as the type and amount of coverage after the blast, how social problems are constructed in the news, the motivations and biases of authoritative or "celebrity" figures used as news sources, and why images of militias were framed in specific ways. Chermak balances his account with an in-depth look at the philosophies, activities, and strategies of militia groups. Drawing on extensive interviews he conducted at gun shows and preparedness exhibitions, the author compares and contrasts media depictions of militia life and ideology with the firsthand accounts of members and leaders themselves, and he assesses how media coverage affected changes in the movement. In conclusion, Chermak discusses the parallels between media treatment of militias in the wake of the Oklahoma City bombing and the coverage of the al-Qaeda terrorist network after the September 11, 2001, attacks. Solidly grounded in social constructionist theory, Searching for a Demon fills a significant gap in the literature on terrorism as well as on the roles of the news media and popular culture in reshaping the public consciousness after dramatic crimes.

Author Biography

Steven M. Chermak is Associate Professor of Criminal Justice and Director of Graduate Affairs at Indiana University. He is the author of Victims in the News: Crime and the American News Media and numerous articles on media coverage of crime.

Table of Contents

Tables and Charts	vii
Preface	ix
Acknowledgments	xi
Constructing Community Boundaries	3	(20)
Ruby Ridge and Waco Revisited	23	(26)
The Rise and Fall of Militias	49	(25)
Voices of Good and Evil	74	(35)
Terrorists and Outsiders	109	(34)
Confirming the Threat	143	(32)
Popular Culture and Militias	175	(36)
Constructing Good Demons	211	(26)
Appendix	237	(2)
Notes	239	(16)
References	255	(6)
Index	261

Excerpts

Constructing Community Boundaries

On April 19, 1995, Timothy McVeigh parked a truck loaded with ammonium nitrate fertilizer outside the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. This truck "bomb" detonated at 9:02 A.M., killing 168 people and injuring nearly 600. Images of the destruction caused by the bomb are now familiar fixtures in American public culture. It is easy for the public to imagine the bloody landscape and the removal of the victims in body bags. An amateur photographer's Pulitzer Prize-winning snapshot of a baby girl in the arms of a rescue worker after being recovered from the debris has been reproduced in newspapers, magazines, and books around the world. This photograph "became a worldwide symbol of the tragedy." Media coverage included the pained faces of spokespersons and rescue workers providing a daily list of casualties. Video images of the destroyed building were stunning: the façade of the building was reduced to rubble, and what was left standing looked more like the ancient ruins of a lost civilization than a modern government center.

The nation was shocked and disturbed by the bombing, and many felt violated and intensely afraid. Oklahoma City was an apparently random target, so people living in every other city in the United States now felt vulnerable to such an attack. This randomness shook the public's sense of security and forced citizens to revisit what they had taken for granted about living in a democratic society. The bombing also reshaped the priorities of society's social control apparatus. Terrorism, which had been a social problem of concern but of low priority, jumped to the front of the policy line. As generally occurs in response to an event of national importance, the U.S. Senate initiated hearings almost immediately to search for appropriate policy initiatives. The Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism, for example, held hearings on the militia movement within sixty days of the bombing. The purpose of these hearings was "examining the scope of militia organizations ... the nature of their activities, their reason for existence, and the extent to which they pose a threat to American citizens." President Bill Clinton recommended the creation of a counterterrorism center, amended the ban on involving the military in domestic law enforcement, and broadened the power of federal agents to investigate extremist groups. The new visibility of terrorism and the momentum for policy change has since carried a high public price tag: spending on antiterrorism initiatives has increased by 5 billion dollars since 1995.

Another of the immediate reactions to the bombing was to search for someone or something to blame. Shifting the focus to a scapegoat is vital for stability and security. Public trust, faith in one's fellow citizens, and perceptions of safety are profoundly disturbed by such crisis. Attribution of responsibility to a source provides the opportunity to direct the fear and anger conjured up by the incident, and the attribution of blame brings balance back to daily social interaction, instilling or renewing faith in the existing structures of society and reaffirming the legitimacy of social control institutions.

The first scapegoat was a well-known and frequently used bogeyman-the Middle Eastern terrorist. On the one hand, this target was a logical choice. Osama bin Laden's terrorist network was well established, and it had demonstrated that it was capable of committing such acts. Moreover, the links between bin Laden, Arab terrorists, and the World Trade Center attacks of 1993 were still fresh in the public's mind. On the other hand, it was equally plausible that a domestic terrorist group was responsible for the bombing. April 19 carries special meaning for such groups, including that it marked the tragic end of a fifty-one-day standoff between the Branch Davidian religious group and federal law-enforcement officers in Waco, Texas. Although some reporters appreciated the significance of April 19 and argued that the bombing might be the work of a domestic terrorist group, most decided that the Oklahoma City bombing had to be the work of foreign terrorists.

It was immediately pointed out that the modus operandi of this attack-a truck bomb placed strategically near a heavily populated meeting place-was similar to terrorist methods in Israel and Europe. Sue Anne Pressley, writing for the Washington Post on the day of the bombing, remarked that "the explosion quickly turned the placid, tree-shaded downtown into a scene more reminiscent of the aftermath of the bombings in Beirut or Tel Aviv." Reporters compared the Oklahoma City tragedy to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, reminding readers that Middle Eastern terrorists were ultimately arrested for that bombing. Some initial stories also cited "unconfirmed reports" that law-enforcement agencies were looking for three men, two of whom were described as Middle Easterners with dark hair and beards. Officials speculated that the bombing could have been the work of Islamic fundamentalists or Arab terrorists.

The Middle Eastern terrorist became the favorite explanation for the bombing because he has been a recurrent threat. The media play a significant role in the demonization of potential threats such as terrorism, and they gave substantial coverage to terrorism in the 1980s and early 1990s. Well-known terrorist events were scrutinized intensely in the press, providing opportunities for interested parties and political power brokers to define the country's vulnerability to terrorism and suggest an appropriate course of action. The Middle Eastern terrorist has also become a staple bad guy in crime-related popular culture. Blockbuster films, novels, crime fiction, and a wide variety of television shows have exploited the international terrorist threat by presenting him as a foe worthy of the forces of good in society. Thus, when rumors circulated that Middle Eastern terrorists were responsible for the Oklahoma City bombing, the public accepted them without scrutiny because such a conclusion was consistent with expectations.

The nation therefore was confused when Timothy McVeigh was arrested and linked to the bombing. McVeigh was not a Middle Eastern terrorist but a U.S. citizen who had had enough commitment to the country to serve in its armed forces, fight in the Gulf War, and receive the Army's Bronze Star for meritorious duty. At first, it was difficult to explain McVeigh's actions. He was not a mentally crazed sociopath like the Unabomber, who committed his acts because he was unable to distinguish between right and wrong. Although there was some evidence of drug use by McVeigh, the extent of the destruction from this bombing was not consistent with preestablished frames for drug offenders. Rather, McVeigh was motivated by his anger at the government, and since he did not fit squarely into any existing stereotypes, it was necessary to shift society's social control boundaries and create new ones that provided an adequate explanation. The new demon was the militia.

Public concern about militia groups, and their understanding of such groups, changed dramatically once the mass media emphasized a link to McVeigh. It is irrelevant that McVeigh was not a member of a militia group. Although it is true that he embraced a philosophy consistent with some militia ideology, was angry with the actions of the government at Ruby Ridge and Waco, and thought about forming a group, he was not a leader of the militia movement and never followed up on his plans to form a group. It is also now clear that McVeigh was frequently interacting with various extremist groups and radicals prior to the bombing, and it would have been as correct to label him a neo-Nazi or highlight his ties to the Ku Klux Klan or the Aryan Republican Army. However, the mass media used the militia to reshape public consciousness in a way similar to how it has influenced the public's shared understanding of international terrorist threats.

One of the objectives of this book is to examine the contributions of news and popular entertainment media to the creation of the public's understanding of militias. Newspapers, "infotainment," reality-based television programming, magazines, and editorial cartoons have become important arenas for the transmission of accepted behavior in society. Despite increases in the number and types of media outlets available, and easier access to a variety of different mediated voices via the World Wide Web, the mass news media remain a central power in the dissemination and control of information in society. Public consumption of news-mediated images remains high, and other sources of institutional power continue to further their agendas by manipulating the presentation of public issues in a way that supports specific positions. Popular culture also plays a vital role in reaffirming the extremes of acceptable and unacceptable behavior in society. Many of the ideas, storylines, plot twists, and significant characters in popular culture resemble the truths and half-truths told in reality-based sources. For example, public understanding of serial murder has been influenced by news analysis of murderers like Jeffrey Dahmer, John Wayne Gacy, and Ted Bundy, as well as by popular fictional accounts of Hannibal "The Cannibal" Lecter, and the various retellings of the murders committed by Jack the Ripper.

In this book, media coverage of the militia movement is examined using both quantitative and qualitative content analysis. Newspaper articles between 1994-the first year in which an article about the militia movement appeared in one of the newspapers sampled-and 1998 were collected and analyzed. The concluding chapter presents additional analysis of media coverage of militias until and through McVeigh's execution in 2001, and it examines the similarities between media coverage of militias and bin Laden's terrorist network following the September 11 attacks. The focus of the news analysis is on newspapers because of the format advantages of this medium. The 1990s militia movement was undefined until the Oklahoma City bombing. Newspapers provided the space for reporters to investigate the characteristics of this newly discovered threat and fully cover the significant events, like political hearings and criminal trials, that helped define the nature of this new threat. I also examine how militia groups became a convenient source of evil on television and in film after the news media targeted militias.

The images of militias presented in the news are influenced by the key processual elements that structure how forces of good and evil in a society are created, disseminated, and understood. Thus it is important to examine why certain social issues become moral crusades and how these issues are presented to the public. I argue that mechanical processes (e.g., how information is selected, processed, and disseminated in society), ceremonial processes (e.g., how decision making is given legitimacy), and feedback processes (e.g., the interplay between news and entertainment media) shape the way problems are defined in society. These processes provide the structure through which problems are socially constructed, help illuminate the moral contours of society, and define which individuals and groups achieve deviant status.

My insights into these processual elements have been influenced by interviews with militia members, extremist watchdogs, law-enforcement officers, and media representatives. From 1996 to 2000, I interviewed one hundred active militia members. Some of these informants were high-profile figures in the movement, but most were leaders or members of local militia groups. I used three different strategies to find potential informants. First, I used militia Web sites as contact points, sending e-mail inquiries to a sample of groups publicizing their activities on the Web. Second, I attended public events that attract a large number of militia members, including preparedness expositions, gun shows, and gun shoots. Third, I attempted to contact people cited in news stories about the subject. I used any contact made through one of these strategies as an opportunity to identify additional interviewees. I used similar techniques to contact extremist watchdogs, law-enforcement officers, and journalists and thereby broaden my understanding of the key players in the social construction of militias.

These qualitative data provide an opportunity to describe the philosophies, activities, and strategies of the members and leaders of militia groups. There are few scholarly accounts that describe militia thinking and militia life, and nobody has yet to describe the militia perspective. This research, therefore, fills a significant hole in research to date by describing the activities of militia groups from their own perspectives. These firsthand accounts are also used as contrasting data to the images of militias constructed by the mass media.

Defining Community Boundaries

Of Emile Durkheim's many contributions to sociology, his thoughts on crime are some of the most intriguing. In The Division of Labor in Society , for example, Durkheim struggles with the issue of social solidarity, and discusses how the evolution of societies can be understood by examining how they move from a mechanical to an organic division of labor. Crime is an important concern affecting the solidarity of a group. He argues that "crime may actually perform a needed service to society by drawing people together in a common posture of anger and indignation." Just as gossip and rhetoric currently swell around a celebrated case, Durkheim discusses how moral scandal affects a small town: "Crime brings together upright consciences and concentrates them.... [The people] stop each other on the street, they visit each other, they seek to come together to talk of the event and to wax indignant in common. From all the similar impressions which are exchanged, for all the temper that gets itself expressed, there emerges a unique temper ...

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Excerpted from SEARCHING FOR A DEMON by Steven M. Chermak Copyright © 2002 by Steven M. Chermak
Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.