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The Contested Meaning of the Crosses at Columbine

Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, jspencer{at}purdue.edu

Glenn W. Muschert

Miami University, Oxford, Ohio

Spontaneous memorials that emerged at Columbine after the shootings became a focal point of news coverage. Especially visible in this discourse were 15 wooden crosses that symbolized the 13 victims of the shootings and the 2 youth who carried out the shootings. The discourse about such memorials has much to reveal about the collective meanings of the events that gave rise to them. In the case of the crosses of Columbine, these meanings are matters of both consensus and contestation. This article examines how the news media constructed the controversy over the crosses through the ways that they represented the shootings, their aftermath, and the participants. It also examines how the resolution to the controversy was constructed from the very language used to construct it. The conclusion examines Columbine's role as a model for public mourning, one that suggests the victory of traditional senses of moral culpability.

Key Words: Columbine • school shootings • media framing • collective memory • memorials • youth violence

This version was published on June 1, 2009

American Behavioral Scientist, Vol. 52, No. 10, 1371-1386 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/0002764209332553


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