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Christopher Thatcher

Professor Mooney

ENC 1102

30 March 2020

The Media Portrayal of Serial Killers

Serial killers are dangerous people that everyone is afraid of. The media will constantly

portray them as monsters who are poster childs of heartless evil. Serial killers are the worst

people in the world and the media writes about them in that tone. Previous research done when

talking about media portrayal of serial killers shows that the media uses very similar word

choices when talking about serial killers, all of which have a negative connotation attached to

them. They also choose specific visual representations when talking about certain serial killers

which I will discuss later in the article. As for previous research, I have discovered how serial

killers are portrayed in films and movies, how the rise of technology and shift to online

publications has changed the landscape of rhetoric, and ways serial killers can have an impact on

a community. I also discovered how these themes fit within the landscapes of rhetoric and how

the media uses specific discourse when talking about serial killers.

Downs describes rhetoric like gravity, in the sense that gravity is a set of principles that

explains and tries to predict how different types of matter interact with each other. Rhetoric is a

set of principles that describe and explain a lot about human communication, interaction, and

their experiences. Similarly, James Paul Gee defines discourse as “connected stretches of

language that discourse communities use every day to communicate with each other” (Gee 274).

The media uses these two essential concepts when producing stories to audiences about serial

killers and the way they portray them. I have always had a fascination with serial killers because
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they are truly polarizing figures who have been portrayed in many different ways. The media has

either portrayed them as true monsters or characters of mystery in feature films and novels like

The Silence of the Lambs and American Psycho. Research has even been done talking about the

new rhetoric and scholarship of the new media such as movies and the creation of the internet

with online publications of journals and books. Some researchers have dug into how serial killers

commit their actions and how just their presence can create an environment of fear and terror

which causes many psychological issues for people.

Bartels explains the aesthetics of how serial killers commit their weekly serial hunts for

victims. He also talks about how important it is to be educated about these weekly serial hunts in

order to trace their criminal history and the overall history of criminals. The main takeaway is

how the aesthetics of the perfect murder is a sublime of beauty to these serial killers, and that

most serial killers suffer from semiotic deformity. O’Connell and Grunder explore how a serial

killer creates an environment of fear and terror. Exploring how students left in the murder zone

of a serial killer suffered terrible emotinal and mental stress that it caused their academics to slip.

Cassuto also mentions the lore of serial killers. He notes that serial killers suffer from many

psychological disorders, causing them to turn into monsters that scare everyone. Cassuto’s article

doubles up with another major theme of my research, how serial killers are portrayed in novels

and films.

Cassuto explores how serial killers are portrayed in fictional circumstances. Looking at

some of the most famous fictional serial killers such as Hannibal Lector, he explains how they

are portrayed and what makes them so intriguing to read about. He notes that real life serial

killers also differ from real life serial killers, how they target different people and their ways of

killing those victims. Similarly, Allué’s article takes note of Lector and another famous serial
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killer in fiction in Patrick Bateman. Talking about the stories of The Silence of the Lambs and

American Psycho, she talks about the differences of how serial killers can be portrayed. Stories

like Silence of the Lambs are stories that glamorise the killer. They are the main attraction of the

story, the characters readers focus on the most. Other stories like American Psycho portray the

killers as characters with no sources of aesthetic pleasure. Gibson talks about a feature french

film that portrays the serial killer as something completely different from Cassuto and Allué. He

mentions that the serial killer’s compulsion and repetition of the way he kills his victims fits the

mold of what the mainstream capitalist society looks for when watching movies about serial

killers. Film adaptations of serial killers talk about the final theme of my intended research, the

scholarship and rhetoric of the new media.

Cheryl E. Ball’s article explores the evolving world of the media with the creation of the

internet and the creation of digital rhetoric. She talks about how the new media uses audio and

videos along with written text to make new meaning. She notes that research has not really been

done on the rhetoric and scholarship of these online publications and tries to figure out what they

are and how they work. “This text demonstrates how multimodal elements and new media

strategies such as the enactment of the text through a timeline can help readers interpret

meanings made through modes that move beyond linear, print traditions.” (Bell 421).

With all the research done on how the media portrays serial killers in a fictional manner,

there is really a lack of research done on how the media portrays real life serial killers like Ted

Bundy, Jeffery Dahmer, and John Wayne Gacy. Providing research into that gap will help me

fully answer the question of how the media portrays serial killers. Noting that serial killers are

dangerous people, it is important to know how dangerous they are by reading how they are

portrayed in real life, not just the fictional world for our reading pleasure.
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Previous research done on the portrayal as previously mentioned does focus on fictional

serial killers like Hannibal Lector, probably the most infamous fictional serial killer in our

culture. I will hope to fill a major gap in all of this research done which is how the media

portrays real life serial killers. The main purpose of this researched article is to explore how

some of the most notorious serial killers in the world such as Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy,

Jeffery Dahmer, and Harold Shipman are portrayed in the media, and how they impact our

understanding of the danger of a serial killer.

During my research, I have found that the media has portrayed these serial killers in a

negative tone using common words such as cold hearted, evil, heartless, monsters, and poster

childs of recieving the death penalty. While analyzing these articles, I found that each article had

a different picture accompanied while telling the story of each serial killer, for example while

analyzing the Ted Bundy story all of the photos of him show him as a cunning, smart, and

innocent man which fits really well with his profile. Meanwhile, while analyzing the John

Wayne Gacy article, a photo used there showed the crime scene at his house which shows just

how much of a monster he is. Every article also tells the story of each serial killer differently,

which is interesting to note because it goes to show how each serial killer is differently portrayed

and just how dangerous they are.

As for the structure of the article, I will begin by talking about the methods I used to

complete my research while noting common themes I identified throughout each article. I will

then talk about the results of my findings with an in depth analysis of how those results have

helped me answer my research question. Following noting the results, I will discuss why these

findings are important to my discourse community and how they match the findings of my
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secondary sources. That will be followed by a conclusion of all the research I have done and why

it is relevant to the field of writing studies.

Methods:

To properly conduct my primary research, I decided to conduct four multimodal textual

analysis of newspaper articles on four of the world’s most notorious serial killers. I started by

looking at news articles of Ted Bundy, Jeffery Dahmer, John Wayne Gacy, and Harold Shipman

just to get a basis of how media outlets wrote about each killer. To fully answer my research

question, I had to look for certain codes pertaining to the media portrayal of serial killers, and it

all started at looking for the negative words or phrases each author used about the killers to shed

a light on what kind of monsters these killers truly are. The next step was to look at any photos

used in each article to see how they match the persona of each killer and how the media views

them. The photos help bring the killers’ stories to light and help support the negativity each

author gives each killer. The last step of my primary data research talks about how each author

tells the story, looking at the rhetorical strategies they use to portray these killers. I was looking

if they were telling a very detailed story, a short story just detailing the actions of each killer,

using a lot of photos, using quotes from the killers or their attorneys, what kind of headlines they

were using, etc. Using these methods helped me produce great results that helped me answer my

primary research question.

Results:

With thorough analysis of my primary sources, I found three central codes that tie into

my secondary source frameworks established in my introduction. Those codes were the negative

words or phrases each author used to portray each killer, which is the ultimate way to see how

the media portrays serial killers. The next code was usage of photographs to help support the
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negative phrases used by the authors and show that the photos of either the killer or crime scene

helps to portray the types of monsters each killer truly was. The final code was the storytelling of

each author about the killers, showcasing strategies each author used to portray the killers and

how online publications have changed the landscape of rhetoric.

Coding Chart:

Codes: Ted Bundy Harold Shipman John Wayne Jeffery Dahmer

Gacy

Negative Words “Very definition “Doctor Death”, The country’s “Dahmer

or Phrases of heartless Britain’s most worst serial murdered 17
evil”, “the most prolific serial killer, “I opened males in truly
cold hearted son killer, concealed the door and god horrific fashion.
of a bitch you’ll horrific there was the Rape,
ever meet”, “a poisoning odor of death”, dismemberment,
loner who would agenda with he killed to rid necrophilia, and
stalk the seedy calm and society of bad cannibalism
streets at night to cunning, “his elements, “the were all parts of
spy on women”, having poster child of his modus
““Murder is not developed a god the death operandi.”, dark
just a crime of complex penalty” thoughts
lust or violence,” regarding the growing in his
“It becomes "kill or cure" head, “ Dahmer
possession. They power he also began
are part of you . . wielded over his carrying out
. [the victim] infirm patients”, particularly
becomes a part The Angel of disturbing acts
of you, and you Death with their
[two] are forever corpses,
one . . . and the continuing to use
grounds where the bodies for
you kill them or intercourse,
leave them taking
become sacred to photographs of
you, and you the
will always be dismemberment
drawn back to process,
them.” preserving with
scientific
precision his
victims’ skulls
and genitals for
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display, and
even retaining
parts for
consumption.”

Visuals Picture of Ted No photos at all, One photo of Photos of

himself at the however there is Gacy’s home Dahmer’s
beginning of the a video of an where he buried mugshot
article, interview with the bodies of all
childhood photo one of his ex of his victims
of Bundy, photos nurses who tells
of the victims, the tale of
photos of objects Shipman
in his car, a
photo of posters
on the day
Bundy was
executed

Storytelling Detailed story, Detailed story to Shorter article, Detailed account

Methods from childhood a degree, talks tells the story of of Dahmer’s
to college, about childhood, capturing Gacy, childhood, how
detailed accounts talks about how the discovery of he got his
of each attack he killed his the bodies, and victims, what he
and murder he victims, how he process of the did with their
committed, the opened his own investigation bodies, what his
story of his trial practice house was like,
and execution trial as well.

The first killer to talk about is Ted Bundy. Ted Bundy is perhaps the most well known

serial killer in history. After analyzing the article, shown in Appendix A, this was the most

detailed article I analyzed because he had the most interesting path to being caught. Starting with

how the author tells his story, he begins with a quote from Ted Bundy describing himself. That

immediately grabs the attention of any reader, which is opening an article with impact. It then

details the first years of Bundy’s terror across the Pacific Northwest, which provides me

immediately with the fact that Ted Bundy was a sly, cunning, dangerous man. Noting that the

first real break in the case came when one woman escaped Bundy is a bold move that works
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because it gives me as a reader a basis of knowledge to know how Ted Bundy impacted the

community he was residing in. Learning that he first didn’t fit the profile of a serial killer was

intriguing because Bundy was very secretive at first. The author then gets lax when talking about

the childhood of Bundy which was an interesting strategy to start with his first terror attacks than

to start telling the story of Bundy. Another interesting move by the author was how he detailed

the attacks that Bundy committed on these women, which really caught my eyes. Those

strategies help paint a picture of the heartless evil Ted Bundy truly was and how me made

everyone around him feel unsafe.

Getting into the photos and negative phrases the author uses to describe Bundy are also

simply sensational when portraying Bundy as almost the devil himself. After reading the story of

Bundy, it is easy to see why he called himself one cold hearted person, because he played

everyone from his victims to his own wife. The use of phrases like the very definition of

heartless evil portray Bundy very well because he really was heartless because he murdered

women out of cold blood with no real remorse. Getting into visuals, it is easy to see why the

prominent picture of the article is a normal photo of Ted Bundy because of how secretive he was.

It took a while for authorities to finally tie Ted Bundy to the disappearances of women all over

the Pacific Northwest and that photo describes just how cunning Bundy was. He went to law

school, was married, all of the stuff normal people do, but Bundy was far from normal. Killing

women out of cold blood puts Bundy in the hall of shame.

The article on Harold Shipman was a bit different than that of Ted Bundy. The author

notes how there is a new documentary coming out about Harold Shipman and how it will detail

new stories about the monster he was. Harold Shipman was dubbed “Doctor Death” because he

was a doctor who murdered his patients, those typically older. The author starts by noting how
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many victims Shipman killed noting that most of his victims were elderly women, and how he

would leave the world. That was by hanging himself in prison. The author then starts to detail the

life of Shipman noting how he saw his mother die of cancer when he was 17 which motivated

him to become a doctor. That starts to paint a picture of how he was kind of like Bundy, a normal

person who seemed incapable of committing such horrible actions, but that picture is quickly

turned into something else. The author quickly gets into the crime spree of Dr, Death which

started with forging prescriptions in 1975. When he opened his own practice in 1992, the author

notes how he developed his master plan. He became well known which allowed him to conceal

his true colors. The author details how he poisoned all of his victims, which makes his portrayal

as Dr. Death very true. Speaking of negative phrases, Dr. Death is the one used a lot by the

author in the article. It is also noted that he was Britain’s most notorious serial killer and the

Angel of Death. That phrase was the best one used because doctors are supposed to be helpful

and save lives not take lives from people who trust them. The visual in this article was an

interview with one of Shipman’s ex nurses in which she details how he seemed normal at first

but quickly revealed his true colors. That video paints Shipman as an evil person and helps me

see how he was portrayed by the media.

John Wayne Gacy’s article was the shortest one I analyzed. The story told by the author

was one of horror which portrays Gacy as perhaps the worst serial killer in American history.

Instead of talking about Gacy’s actions or life, the author chose to tell the story of the

investigation into Gacy and the discovery they made of the victims he buried at his home in

Chicago. The author noted how one FBI agent described Gacy’s home as one of an odor of death

which goes to show just how dangerous Gacy was. He truly created an environment of fear that

made his neighbors squander in fear that they could be his next victims. Phrases like the
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country’s worst serial killer and the poster child of the death penalty fit the mold of what the

author is doing to portray John Wayne Gacy. A monster with no remorse for human life, and as

Gacy mentioned himself, he thought that killing those young men was ridding society of bad

elements when he was the bad element of society. The visual with this article was Gacy’s home

being demolished by a bulldozer revealing the bodies of his victims. That visual helps the story

told by the article fit the monster persona Gacy gave himself. Showing Gacy himself would not

have helped portray him as much as a monster as the visual they used did. That photo helped

portray Gacy as a heartless monster who deserved the death penalty.

The article on Jeffery Dahmer is a story of insanity. The author portrays Dahmer as an

insane man who committed monstrous acts because of his neglected childhood. The story begins

with how Dahmer didn’t have much of a childhood who took up a hobby looking at animal

carcases. That neglected childhood led him to have dark thoughts and go down a dark path. The

author does a great job to satisfy the portrayal of Dahmer by detailing the horrific things he did

to the bodies of his victims, which would include creating a candle out of human skulls. The

author chose to detail the story of his second victim, which was probably the most horrific

murder he carried out. His magnum opus was how he decided to become a necrophiliac after

killing his victims, which was one of the negative phrases the author used to portray Dahmer.

The visual of Dahmer’s mugshots doesn’t provide much but what I can get from it, it pictures a

man crazed by dark thoughts but was remorseful for the actions he committed. While he was

truly a monster, showing remorse for his actions makes him a sliver less of a monster than the

other three killers.

Discussion:
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All of these results allows me to fully answer my research question of how the media

portrays serial killers. As stated in the results, it can be seen that serial killers can be portrayed

the same but differently at the same time. Killers like Shipman and Bundy were normal people

who hid their true colors from the public until they slipped up one time. Dahmer was a monster

who turned to killing because of his neglected childhood. Gacy was just a monster who decided

to kill because he thought that society needed reforming by getting rid of “bad elements”. My

secondary research found that serial killers are even monsters in a fictional world but are either

liked or disliked by readers. All of these serial killers are disliked by the public because they

committed horrible actions.

The articles by Cassuto and Gibson talk about the serial killers in The Silence of the

Lambs and American Psycho. Those killers are either the main attraction of the story or kill

because with no real reasons. John Wayne Gacy was that way because he killed his victims with

no real reason and no aesthetic pleasure which was mentioned by the Gibson article. All four of

the serial killers I mentioned and analyzed were glamorized by the media in negative fashions

and that really fits the findings of those secondary sources.

O’Connell and Grunder explored how serial killers create environments of fear and can

impact academic performance of students. The story of Ted Bundy can perfectly fit the mold of

those findings because he attacked sorority girls of Chi Omega at Florida State. That greatly

impacted the students’ academic performance because they had to live in an environment of fear

because of what Ted Bundy had done. Harold Shipman scared his patients because he killed so

many of them, that he lost patients very fast when his story came to light. John Wayne Gacy

gave Chicago a scare when he murdered his victims, creating a dangerous environment and

making people fear for their lives, mainly the parents of young men.
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Conclusion:

Ultimately, my findings support most of the claims of my secondary sources. They

support how serial killers are portrayed, even if the killers are fictional, the storytelling methods

of each author helps support the claims of the new media rhetoric and how online publications

change the way we look at rhetoric. Serial killers are dangerous people who are not to be taken

for granted because they can cause so much harm even for people they don’t target. It is

important to know what they are capable of and how that can impact everyone from a normal

family to college students, just the presence of a serial killer can create fear among a community.

Serial killers hunt their victims during serial hunts which was proven by the article of Bartels and

further established in my primary research findings.

The main takeaway should be that the media should continue to shine light on serial

killers and make the public aware of what they can do to impact our daily lives. The media

should continue to tell the entire story of the serial killers, not just their actions because

providing background information allows us to understand why they committed their actions.

My findings support what was said in the writing journal findings. All the writing journals talk

about how serial killers are polarizing figures but deep down are true roots of heartless evil, who

murder innocent people out of joy. All of these findings say that the discourse community of

serial killers is a scary but interesting one to talk about. Researching into these serial killers can

be a bit intimidating because you never know what you will find but the findings will always be

intriguing if you know what to look for. I believe some of the biggest questions raised is how did

these serial killers get the urge to kill, how they covered their tracks for so long, and how did the

public feel when they were finally brought to justice and captured by authorities. I think future

research can go anywhere when you talk about serial killers. Research like what is their
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psychological build up, how their actions changed who they were as a person, anything about

serial killers is important as to learning about the criminal history of America and important

moments in crime analysis as well.

Appendix A: Article 1

Appendix A: Article 1
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Appendix B: Article 2
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Appendix C: Article 3
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Appendix D: Article 4

Works Cited:
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Allué, Sonia Baelo. “THE AESTHETICS OF SERIAL KILLING: WORKING

AGAINST ETHICS IN ‘THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS’ (1988) AND ‘AMERICAN

PSYCHO’ (1991).” Atlantis, vol. 24, no. 2, 2002, pp. 7–24. JSTOR,

www.jstor.org/stable/41055067. Accessed 3 Mar. 2020.

Ball, Cheryl E. “Show, Not Tell: The Value of New Media Scholarship.” Computers and

Composition: An International Journal for Teachers of Writing, vol. 21, no. 4, 2004, pp.

403–425. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1016/j.compcom.2004.08.001.

Bartels, Klaus. “Serial Killers: Sublimity to Be Continued. Aesthetics and Criminal

History.” Amerikastudien / American Studies, vol. 43, no. 3, 1998, pp. 497–516. JSTOR,

www.jstor.org/stable/41157401. Accessed 1 Mar. 2020.

Cassuto, Leonard. “The Cultural Work of Serial Killers.” Minnesota Review: A Journal

of Creative and Critical Writing, vol. 58–60, 2003, pp. 219–229. EBSCOhost, Project

MUSE - The Cultural Work of Serial Killers

Downs, Doug. “Rhetoric Making Sense of Human Interaction and Meaning-Making”.

Writing About Writing, edited by Doug Downs and Elizabeth Wardle, Bedford St. Martin,

2017, pp. 457-481.

Gee, Paul James. “Literacy, Discourse, and Linguistics”. Writing About Writing, edited

by Doug Downs and Elizabeth Wardle, Bedford St Martin, 2017, pp. 274-294.

Gibson, Brian. “KILLING IN THE NAME OF...NOTHING: THE SERIAL SEARCH

FOR MEANING AND THE ABSENCE OF DESIRE IN ‘THE MINUS MAN AND

DAHMER.’” Revue Canadienne D'Études Cinématographiques / Canadian Journal of

Film Studies, vol. 22, no. 2, 2013, pp. 120–142. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/24411811.

Accessed 8 Mar. 2020.

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Museum, Crime. “Jeffrey Dahmer: Crime Library: Serial Killers.” Crime Museum, 2018,

www.crimemuseum.org/crime-library/serial-killers/jeffrey-dahmer/.

O’Connell, April, and Patricia Grunder. “The Emotional, Physical, and Academic Impact of

Living with Terror.” Community College Journal, vol. 74, no. 1, Jan. 2003, pp. 24–29.

EBSCOhost.

Paoletti, Gabe. “‘The Very Definition Of Heartless Evil’: The Story Of Ted Bundy.” All That's

Interesting, All That's Interesting, 19 Feb. 2020, allthatsinteresting.com/ted-bundy.

Smith, Sid. “John Wayne Gacy, the Country's Worst Serial Killer.” Chicagotribune.com,

Chicago Tribune, 14 May 2019, www.chicagotribune.com/nation-world/chi-chicagodays-

gacy-story-story.html.

Sommerlad, Joe. “Who Was Harold Shipman and How Many of His Patients Did He Kill?” The

Independent, Independent Digital News and Media, 27 Apr. 2018,

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/harold-shipman-doctor-death-serial-killer-gp-

mass-murderer-hyde-manchester-itv-documentary-a8323176.html.