Mass Shootings in Australia and the USA
Context:
This weekend, two mass shootings - one on Bondi Beach in Australia during a celebration of the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah and the other in a classroom at Brown University in the United States - sparked renewed discussions about gun control, public safety, antisemitism, the psychological motivations of the shooters, and the onslaught of fake news during such tragic events.
Members of the media may directly contact the following experts:
Jan Grabowski (English & French)
Full professor, History, Faculty of Arts
Professor Grabowski’s research focuses on the Holocaust.
“The shocking violence in Sydney and in so many other jurisdictions, the killings of innocent people who are being targeted for being Jews, is one more reminder that the explosive growth of antisemitism, this most ancient of all hatreds, has to be eradicated at all costs! All of us, our governments and our institutions have been complacent or indifferent to this growing danger far too long, and we all have now to bear the burden of responsibility”.
Elie Serge Banyongen (English and French)
Part Time Professor, Political Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences
Professor Banyongen’s research focuses on terrorism, social politics, and geopolitics.
“In various contexts, mass shootings often involve political violence, grievance-driven radicalization, and unaddressed mental health problems, where ideological beliefs convert personal crises into acts of terror aimed at the public.”
Irvin Waller (English and French)
Emeritus Professor, Criminology, Faculty of Social Sciences
Professor Waller's research focuses on the prevention of violent crime, the experiences and rights of crime victims, and the roles of police and prisons in crime reduction.
“What does the Bondi massacre mean for gun control, violence prevention and implementation of the mass casualty commission recommendations.”
Cary Kogan(English only)
Full Professor, School of Psychology (Clinical), Faculty of Social Sciences
Professor Kogan’s interdisciplinary research program spans the several topics including mental health classification, understanding the impact of racism on the mental health of people from the Black Canadian communities, and more recently, antisemitism in higher education.
“The inaction of western governments to properly name and address antisemitism and antizionism occurring against Jewish communities has created an environment ripe for anti-Jewish violence to occur. The intelligence community knows that foreign governments and bad actors are intent on promoting a climate of bigotry, discrimination, and hatred against Jews with the aim of preventing Jews from participating as equal citizens in our democracies. This creates a dangerous and toxic environment that leads to intimidation, and violence, including murder. This will ultimately undermine our democracy for all.”
Michelle Tessier (English and French)
Senior fellow, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, Faculty of Social Sciences
Professor Tessier worked for 35 years at the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS). She is knowledgeable in intelligence, national security, and international terrorism.
“Although the motivations for all the recent tragic shootings that have occurred remain unknown, the incident in Australia clearly indicates the ongoing risk of terrorism and extremist violence. Several factors serve to continue to lead to radicalization, such as violent on-line propaganda and recruitment, creating challenges for authorities to identify potential perpetrators before they act. That being said, intelligence agencies worldwide continue to publicly warn of the threat of violent extremists.”
Isaac Nahon-Serfaty(English, French and Spanish)
Full Professor, Department of Communication, Faculty of Arts
Professor Nahon-Serfaty can talk about this topic from a communication standpoint.
The terrorist attack at Bondi Beach in Australia follows a pattern: it looked not only to achieve the maximum of victims (in this case Jewish victims) but also the maximum of public visibility. Even though terrorist action has been historically related to propaganda and agitation, today's hyperconnected world incentivizes this kind of murderous activity in a climate of social polarization. Fanatical evil plus the possibility of superproduction of visual images are a fatal combination, as we have seen over and over since September 11 to October 7, 2023.
Umar Ruhi (English only)
Associate Professor, Business Analytics & Information Systems, Telfer School of Management
umar.ruhi@uottawa.ca
ruhi@telfer.uOttawa.ca
Professor Ruhi’s research interests lie at the intersection of Information Systems and Knowledge Management, and his research programs are concerned with exploring contemporary information and communication technologies (ICTs) and their applications in human, organizational, and social contexts.
"Breaking news creates an information vacuum, and the fastest content is rarely the most verified. In an AI-augmented social media landscape there’s a compounding effect:
Human-driven virality and AI-driven plausibility can reinforce each other. In this case, reporting suggests the ‘Edward Crabtree’ story originated from a dubious site created the day of the attack, which looks like disinformation at the source, while many users and the chatbot repeating it functioned as misinformation amplifiers."