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Purpose – The purpose of this chapter is to discuss the complex interplay between the media, school shootings and society from the perspective of mediatization of the victim. In mediatization of the victim, the media, in a crisis, plays a key role in connecting people, disseminating information, compiling a security-related picture and providing for potential new emergencies.

Design/approach – The chapter draws on Winfried Schulz's (2004) typology for the analysis of mediatization of the victim in the multidimensional manner. It examines how mediatization works in practice by applying Schulz's typology in the analysis of the two school shootings in Finland in Jokela in 2007 and in Kauhajoki in 2008. The empirical material consists of interviews with police, state and municipal officials and people from non-governmental organizations. Media materials (electronic and print) were collected from the major Finnish media houses and several state and community official web sites.

Findings – The chapter argues that the media shapes the construction of the victim in the process of mediatization and makes the role of victim and witness both central and ambiguous. The chapter concludes by drawing upon the work of French sociologist Luc Boltanski (1999) on morality, media and politics as it identifies the ways in which mediatization engages the affective potential of the spectator and evokes a specific disposition to act upon the suffering, thus, creating a moralizing effect on the spectator.

Originality/value – The chapter produces new theoretical and empirical knowledge on the complex interplay between the media, school shootings and society by discussing it from the perspective of the victim. Consequently, it contributes in deepening our understanding of the process of mediatization and the place of the victim in it in the case of violent crisis such as school shootings.

On 20 March 2020, the four adult convicts of the 2012 Delhi rape case were executed after a long debate regarding the punishment for their crime. The Delhi rape case, unlike others, was also given to the fast track court because of the worldwide outrage India received in its aftermath. Otherwise, most rape survivors rarely speak out and if they do, their lives are often endangered and threatened, depending on the severity of the case itself and the perpetrator's rank in the society. Through the analysis of Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury's, 2016 film Pink, and Ajay Bahl's film Section 375 (2019), this chapter explores the different ways in which mainstream Hindi cinema deals with such questions, especially in its depictions of courts. Both these films foreground India's contemporary cultural systems of fear that silence the rape survivors. They also imply that in the court cases, unless the specific court case faces intense global publicity, as was the case of the Delhi gang rape, rape survivors will never want to speak out. Moreover, the rape survivors will also hesitate to file a First Information Report (FIR) – a document that records crimes by the police against their perpetrators – limiting any possibility for justice for them. The laws surrounding rape cases are obscure and complex and finding justice for a rape victim (unless it is on a global level) is not an easy venture in India. At the time of the #metoo movement, the rape laws in India are not designed in such a way to arguably encourage victim-survivors to speak up. Instead, if rape survivors do decide to confront their perpetrators, they not only face ostracisation from society but also the danger of losing loved ones and endanger their lives as well.

What do crime victims want? The answer suggested by Alexandre Dumas’ iconic character Edmund Dantés in The Count of Monte Cristo suggests that victims may want retribution, not revenge. Victims may seek more than restored honor or personal restitution. They may long for justice to prevail as an affirmation that the world still makes sense. Yet, Dumas also reminds us through the novel that human justice is only human and cannot provide this kind of cosmic guarantee. From this perspective, it is revenge, not retribution that looks more measured and more humane.

Canada criminalized the nonconsensual distribution of intimate images in 2014. Lawmakers and commentators noted that this new offense would fill a legislative gap in relation to “revenge pornography,” which entails individuals (typically men) sharing intimate images of their ex-partners (typically women) online in an attempt to seek revenge or cause them harm. Feminist writers and activists categorize revenge pornography as a symptom and consequence of “rape culture,” in which sexual violence is routinely trivialized and viewed as acceptable or entertaining, and women are blamed for their sexual victimization. In this chapter, I analyze Canada's burgeoning revenge pornography case law and find that these cases support an understanding of revenge pornography as a serious form of communal, gendered, intimate partner violence, which is extremely effective at harming victims because of broader rape culture. While Canadian judges are taking revenge pornography seriously, there is some indication from the case law that they are at risk of relying on gendered reasoning and assumptions previously observed by feminists in sexual assault jurisprudence, which may have the result of bolstering rape culture, rather than contesting it.

Based on interviews with 27 victims’ family members and survivors, this chapter explores how memory of the Oklahoma City bombing was constructed through participation in groups formed after the bombing and participation in the trials of Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols. It first addresses the efficacy of a collective memory perspective. It then describes the mental context in which interviewees joined groups after the bombing, the recovery functions groups played, and their impact on punishment expectations. Next, it discusses a media-initiated involuntary relationship between McVeigh and interviewees. Finally, this chapter examines execution witnesses’ perceptions of communication with McVeigh in his trial and execution.

This chapter explores the language of anti-violence activists, university coordinators, and due-process activists concerned with Title IX and campus sexual violence. Using an analysis of 32 in-depth interviews with anti-violence activists, due-process activists, and campus Title IX coordinators, the authors identify key themes in Title IX discourse, including ideas about cultural change and safety. In some instances, activists and coordinators discussed the need for cultural change, though often without agreeing on which campus cultures must be confronted. The authors also found the influence of the dominant discourse of the victims’ rights movement in interview subjects’ emphasis on safety and paternalism.