scholar, educator and author
Ruth DeFoster holds a PhD in mass communication from the University of Minnesota.
She is an Assistant Professor at the Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication, where she teaches courses on advertising, visual communication, popular culture, writing, and media. Her research focuses on media coverage of crime, mass shootings, terrorism and identity. She is the author of the book Terrorizing the Masses: Identity, Mass Shootings and the Media Construction of 'Terror.'
Ruth's professional background is in journalism, and she has over a decade of experience as a writer, editor and journalist. She was the 2020 Head of the Cultural and Critical Studies Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, and served as Director of Undergraduate Studies for the Hubbard School from 2019-2023.
“Confronted with mass shootings in a post-Columbine, post-September 11 world, journalists and commentators tend to shunt shooters into one of two neatly delineated camps—“crazy” or “political.” And in coverage of mass shootings with any hint of a link to Islam, Arab or Muslim identity, or any interest by the shooter in Islamic extremism, the two categories shift to “crazy” (or “disturbed”/“unbalanced”) or “terrorist.”
— Ruth DeFoster, PhD
Praise for Terrorizing the Masses:
“In Terrorizing the Masses, Ruth DeFoster analyzes how news media framed five mass shootings occurring over the span of two decades. Given the rarity of these events, DeFoster cogently argues that U.S. news media create the frameworks through which we come to “know” such events and thus determine political, social, and cultural responses to these terrible acts of gun violence. In this important book, DeFoster does not shy away from the difficult questions her analysis raises, particularly in terms of what it is about U.S. culture (and mass shootings, as she takes pains to remind us, are a peculiarly U.S. phenomenon) and its racialized masculinities that create conditions in which such violence continues to occur.”
— Carol Stabile, Professor and Associate Dean for the Social Sciences, University of Oregon
“Through an insightful and engrossing analysis, Ruth DeFoster uncovers stunning media bias. Mass shootings committed by Arab or Muslim Americans are labeled as terrorism and receive exponentially more coverage than those committed by white men. The evidence is clear and the misrepresentation alarming. You will never think of mass shootings in the same way again.”
