It’s mourning again in America. Many of us went to sleep on Saturday night grieving the news of a mass shooting in El Paso, Texas, motivated by racism. We woke up Sunday morning to another mass murder in Dayton, Ohio, this one with even less of a motive. Journalists are scrambling to address each event, knowing that their audiences are spinning in different directions, exhausted by the banality of violence while at the same time looking for more information. How much of this violence is motivated by uncontrollable hatred and rage, where the murderer seeks some kind of societal revenge? How much is meant to inspire further violence from others teetering on the edge? Ultimately, these events are not monocausal. White supremacists are relying on both social and technical means to reach new publics, while inspiring others. CONT.
Joan Donovan (Harvard Kennedy School), NBC News