Masculinity, Ritual, and Racialized Status Threat: Examining Mass Shooter Manifestos Using Structural Topic Models

Abstract

Both popular media and research often frame mass shootings as an individual issue having to do with mental illness or other individual differences. This work has unfolded in much the same fashion as that on other negative or anti‐social behaviors—such as the individual pathologization of suicide or rape. However, what this work has shown empirically is that there are often a set of circumstances that are uniquely social that motivate such actions. Following work in sociology, which offers social psychological and cultural explanations for gun violence, we argue that mass shooter motivations reflect social conditions—especially those that instantiate toxic masculinity, social exclusion, and racism—conducive to these events. This article uses a computational textual modeling approach to analyze the distinct social logics that motivate mass shooters. To do this, we identify a sample of 27 publicly available mass shooter “manifestos,” or documents left behind by shooters following their actions. Using topic models, we show that mass shooters exhibit a variety of preoccupations that underlie their actions. While shooters can exhibit a multitude of possible motivations, we find that expressions of masculine overcompensation, ritualistic responses to exclusion, and racialized status threat are prominent features of mass shooter manifestos, corroborating recent sociological explanations of mass shootings.