Pulsing

Abstract

I first learned about the mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, through the television. Popular news anchors provided “on the scene” reporting. I saw interviews with officials, with those present at the shooting, and with families and friends of victims. The media narrative unfolded against a visual backdrop of the club, almost always a great distance off, blocked by police cars and tape. I thought hard about that distance. I felt the repetition of the information, the personalization of the event through “selfie” photos of individual victims, and the witness accounts emphasizing the ringing of cell phones in the silence following the rampage. Reporters discussed the killer’s radical politics and his use of social media during his killing spree. Beyond these details of an emergent tragedy, though, was a well-rehearsed, overly familiar narrative frame. A recurring spectacle now grows less and less spectacular.