What’s Wrong with Elliot Rogers? My Clinical Analysis

• As a communication student, you are asked to provide a clinical diagnosis of Elliot Rogers who obviously had enormous difficulties to communicate with others surrounding him. There are numerous news reporting about this massacre in UCSB. Several theories we learned in this class, such as identity theory (Chapter #3), perception theory (Chapter #4), intercultural communication theory (Chapter #8), relationship theory (Chapter #9), and cultivation theory (Chapter #13), can help us to understand the tragedy. Please use those theories to make a sensible analysis of this tragedy.

• Particularly, try to answer these questions: How could an apparently “normal” American young man end up committing such horrible crime against humanity? If Elliot Rogers sought therapeutic help from you, what kind of self-examination would you suggest for Elliot Rogers to do? What can we, as society, do to avoid such barbarianism? Now, imagine you are a parent writing a letter to your teenager children to help them understand the tragedy, what will you tell your children?

The textbook for COM 250 Communication and Society that we are using is:

“Human Communicaiton in Society” (3rd edition) by Alberts et al.