In service to the real: Simulation, ideology, and the Oklahoma City bombing

Margaret H Hirschberg, Purdue University

Abstract

This work explores how ideology and simulation work side by side, illustrating how the Oklahoma City Bombing is simultaneously deinscribed of and reinscribed with meaning. The thesis shows instances in which the inability to differentiate between the real and the simulated is of no matter to those who are concerned only with the real. First, the thesis explores the strategies that different sources of dominant ideology (hegemonic media, presidential rhetoric, and victim-survivor groups) use to forge a common path to "The Church of the National Tragedy." Second, the thesis explores the effort non-dominant ideologies (militia and conspiracy theory) make to appropriate and reinscribe "icons" created by the dominant ideology into their own non-dominant ideological sphere. Finally, the thesis reads the McVeigh trial through a Baudrillardian and Foucauldian lens, analyzing how simulation works in tandem with demands for confession, remorse, and "torture in the remote" in order to reproduce judicial truth. The thesis is written as a series of "event-scenes." It invites the reader to an exploration of simulation and ideologies by means of an intentionally spectacular figuring of the bombing and the trial.

Degree

Ph.D.

Advisors

Rubenstein, Purdue University.

Subject Area

Political science|American studies|Mass media|Criminology

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