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The study seeks to introduce a new media model that (1) clearly illustrates the role of mass media in the transmission of cultural messages, and (2) helps to explain variations in the reception and employment of cultural messages by members of the same culture.

Drawing on decades of theorizing in cultural sociology and communication studies, as well as data from two qualitative content analyses, a new model was developed, explained, and then applied to a specific cultural phenomenon.

Mass media are significant transmitters of cultural messages and play an influential role in shaping culture, yet the process is complex. There is great variety in what messages are accepted by different consumers, how they are interpreted, and how they ultimately are employed (or not). Further, cultures that include contradictory messages are more likely to inadvertently promote deviant paths to culturally valued goals.

First, the model only addresses one dimension of the relationship between mass media and culture; it does not explain cultural influences on mass media. Second, the model does not specifically address recent changes in the media landscape, though an accommodation is suggested. Finally, the model needs additional testing before its utility can be reasonably determined.

First, a new model is introduced that clearly illustrates the complex process by which cultural messages are transmitted to receivers via mass media. Second, the model introduces the concept of “cultural capacity” to complement existing concepts and advance understanding of the operation of culture.

Myra Hindley is typically described as an ‘icon of evil’. In the 1960s, Hindley and her boyfriend Ian Brady sexually tortured and murdered at least two girls and three boys, aged between 10 and 17 years, in the Manchester area of the UK. All except one were sexually assaulted. She has provoked a huge amount of public commentary for more than three and a half decades after her conviction. This chapter asks how Hindley's actions were understood and interpreted at the time. Central themes are the concept ‘evil’, sexual violence, pornography, permissive society and patriarchy, as refracted through gender and class.

In 2013, the television programme Hannibal debuted on television. Taking characters and narrative from three novels by Thomas Harris (Red Dragon (1981), Silence of the Lambs (1989) and Hannibal (1999)) over three seasons, the audience got to spend time with Dr Hannibal Lecter. Appearing 32 years after the first book and 27 years after Hannibal’s first screen appearance, much has changed in Dr Lecter’s world and the most interesting of these changes is the gender of characters.

In Red Dragon, Dr Alan Bloom and Freddy Lounds are men, and in the television series, they are women. This chapter argues that another change in genders occurs as Will Graham replaces Clarice Starling as the person Lecter seduces. It also introduces a female psychiatrist for Dr Lecter. These changes alter the presentation of the specific characters but also that of the overall narrative arc of the television series.

This chapter will identify and evaluate these shifts in gender and consider how these changes impact the viewer experience. The change of the familiar to the unfamiliar is uncanny, and it is this argument that adds to the presentation of Will and Hannibal as figures of horror and increases audience anxiety and fear.

The paper addresses the issue of contrasting constructions of social problems. Using “hate crime” as an example, we focus on portraits of the problem in the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) Uniform Crime Reports and in the New York Times. The analysis illumines how fundamental contrasts in representations of hate arise from differences in the underlying, and institutionalized, sense-making practices of scorekeeping and storytelling. We conclude by discussing the larger implications of the findings for further development of the theoretical model of “dialogical constructionism.”

In November 2009, scholars from different parts of the world converged on Helsinki for the Conference on Social Violence in the Network Society. Among those who participated were scholars in a variety of fields who have examined the media/communications dynamic of school shootings. This volume is the outgrowth of those discussions begun in that venue.¹ Three years later, while the contributors to this volume were drafting their chapters, there was a 3 week period in late-March/early-April 2012 in which three events relevant to the topic of this volume occurred in three divergent settings. Case 1: in Toulouse, France a male serial killer murders three children at the Jewish Ozar Hatorah secondary school. The police besiege the killer and kill him after a violent standoff. The case makes news all over Europe, and beyond. Case 2: the Finnish news media tell the story of a young man who attacks a high school in the small town of Orivesi, Western Finland. Nobody is killed in the shooting, but the local community is shocked. The police catch the perpetrator, who claims his motive was to violate his ex-girlfriend, a student at the high school. Case 3: International news breaks about another school shooting at Oikos University in Oakland, California. The perpetrator, a former student of the school, kills seven people and injures several. The police later catch him, and when interviewed he claims he was bullied at school. Are these cases part of a unified phenomenon, or is their coincidence random?

Much discussion has taken place in real life and in cyber space about the future of Henry Archer. He has been the subject of gossip, with the nature of his conception, and then gained a stepfather, seemingly a gentleman, who cared for both Henry and his mother. Coercive control came to dominate the relation between Rob Titchener and Helen Archer, giving an outward appearance of perfection in all aspects of family life. Henry experienced the gaslighting along with Helen and having seen his mum stab his new adoptive father, Henry was left without his mum, and in the care of evil Rob, effectively prevented from contact with his staid, and consistently caring grandparents. This paper will consider the impact of the trauma on Henry's potential psychological self as an older child and adolescent, looking at the impact of attachment, disparate parenting styles, social learning theory and domestic violence. There is also a comparison to a case study which could illustrate Henry's future, should he decide to begin a career in serial killing.