







































51

Resurfacing Specters in the House of Media: The Ghosts 
of Columbine in American Horror Story: Murder House

Jared Lynch, Ball State University

This article explores an aspect of haunting and terror that surfaced after the Columbine school 
shooting, a specter crafted and refined through the journalistic practice of framing. This ghost 
inhabits the house of media, where it still continues to surface. American Horror Story: Mur-
der House presents an incarnation of this ghost, opening a new way of thinking about both 
journalistic framing and the specter of mass violence. 

On April 20, 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold murdered twelve of their fellow 
students and a teacher and shot 21 other students at Columbine High School near Littleton, 
Colorado. This tragedy, which they had been planning meticulously for months, came to be 
referred to as the worst school shooting in U.S. history and resulted in fifteen deaths when 
it concluded with Eric and Dylan’s suicides. American	Horror	Story:	Murder	House occurs 
in Los Angeles in a mirror universe, a double of America. This doubling is subtly enforced 
by minute details such as a character who smokes Pell Mell cigarettes instead of Pall Malls. 
There is a house in this mirror that inherits the souls of all who die within the house or on 
the property, and the ghosts are forced to exist eternally within the constraints of the Murder 
House. In the fictionalized 1994 Los Angeles, Tate, a character living in the house, suffers 
a mental breakdown and goes to his high school, Westfield High, and murders fifteen of 
his fellow classmates. Murder	House intentionally frames the Westfield High shooting to 
mirror key elements used in the news media’s coverage of Columbine, presenting a ghostly 
double that occurs in 1994 instead of 1999, at a fictionalized Westfield High School in Los 
Angeles instead of Columbine in Colorado. The narrative in the show is non-linear, and the 
shooting is revealed sporadically throughout the season, emphasizing the ghostliness of the 
specter. Each time the event surfaces, a new frame is presented in an attempt to shed more 
light on the matter, but it is jarring as the viewer continues to encounter the specter of West-
field High through the progression of Murder	House. Each frame presents a piece of the 
fictionalized shooting while also alluding to its internalization of Columbine. Through the 
intentional framing of the Westfield High massacre in Murder	House, the show surfaces the 
societal ghosts of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold and the essence of Columbine, illustrates 
the ghostly qualities of framing through employing the journalistic practice, and exposes a 
new thread of American horror that is created in the house of media.

Columbine startled the nation; it disrupted the everyday channel. While the tragedy itself 
lasted less than an hour, its presence in the news media allowed it to remain on the surface 
of society’s attention well beyond the constraints of its placement in the nation’s linear time-
line. When tragedies like Columbine occur, mass media is the initial source of information, 
and, through framing, news media actively direct the eye of the viewer, emphasizing certain 

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Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article to dlr@bsu.edu.

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52Resurfacing Specters in the House of Media, Lynch

aspects of the event. In his book Comprehending	Columbine, Ralph W. Larkin writes, “The 
Columbine massacre was the most important news event in 1999. […] Because of the 
magnitude of the story of the Columbine shootings, daily reportage lasted for a full month” 
(2). The story remained critical through the journalistic practice of framing, in which the 
salience, or relative importance, of a subject is kindled and perpetuated through persistent 
refocusing of the key details of a story. The magnitude and ambiguity of the true motives and 
intentions of Columbine fueled the story’s salience, and the consistent reframing of the event 
allowed it to remain on the surface of the nation’s attention. “During any event’s life span, the 
news media often reframe the event by emphasizing different attributes of the event—con-
sciously or unconsciously—in order to keep the story alive and fresh” (Chyi and McCombs 
23). This practice is what caused daily reportage to last a month, as different perspectives 
were unearthed, and presented society with another piece of the mosaic. When Columbine is 
viewed retrospectively, the salience will forever be filtered through the framed perspectives. 
Murder	House uses these tactics to ensnare the essence of this American tragedy, presenting it 
within a world removed from the actual incident through time and spatial progression.

Several seeds of the specific frames of Columbine were evident in the presentation of 
news media coverage on April 20, 1999 as the event was unfolding. While coverage was 
shrouded in a sense of uncertainty, several foundational projections were established in 
the initial reportage, such as the physical appearance of Eric and Dylan, which came to be 
a major identifying point of these two perpetrators of typical society. In a compilation of 
real-time news footage from that day, a news anchor states, “The first description, by the 
way, of the suspects is that they were wearing long coats, dark boots” (“1999…”). This 
established a physical description, which became a centrality when discussing the event. 
In the same compilation another anchor elaborates, “[T]hese gunmen, wearing the black 
trench coats may have been in a gang within the school that a lot of witnesses describe as 
the Trench Coat Mafia” (“1999...”). This element of framing came to embody a physical 
specter that society could fathom as the perpetrators. 

In Murder	House’s 1994 Los Angeles, when Tate decides to murder his fellow class-
mates, he disregards his typical outfit of jeans and a sweater and dons a pair of black com-
bat boots and a long, dark coat. By dressing in this manner, Tate brings forth the physical 
essence of Harris and Klebold, dispossessing his actual self, inheriting the spirit of the 
tragedy. He provides the first physical frame of Columbine, internalizing the physicality of 
the horror, presenting a face of American fear. After Violet, Tate’s girlfriend, learns of the 
Westfield High shooting, one of the articles in her search presents the subtitle, “Westfield 
wasn’t about jocks, Goths, or Trenchcoat Mafia” (“Piggy Piggy”). This reference to Col-
umbine is subtle in its approach, but it yields power to the material phantom that the news 
media created through this frame of Columbine, which bears an incredible power when 
resurfaced. It is unnecessary to know the identity of the ghost to still be affected by its 
visceral symbolism. When Tate inherits this corporeal ghoul, he employs the empowering 
nature of this particular frame.

Another outlet of the framing that was established in the initial coverage was the tar-
geting of jocks. Shortly after reports began emerging of the event, a Columbine student 
was interviewed saying, “They were shooting anyone […] wearing a white hat or playing 
a sport” (“1999…”). White baseball hats were worn by jocks at Columbine high school, a 
physical differentiation of social structure. This frame, while developed early in the news 
media’s coverage, helped to craft the perceived progression of events in Columbine. It was 
later established that Eric and Dylan were victims of bullying. In the documentary Colum-



53Resurfacing Specters in the House of Media, Lynch

bine	Killers, Brooks Brown, a friend of Eric and Dylan, states in an interview, “They were 
the bottom two kids in the entire school. Not just out of the senior class—the entire school. 
They were the two uncoolest kids. They were the losers of the losers” (Columbine	Killers). 
Later in the documentary Eric is shown in a home video taken at the school, walking with 
a friend through the hallways a year before the shooting. Dylan is holding the camera, and 
they are approached by a “wall of jocks,” who subsequently run into the boys, elbowing 
them, nearly knocking the camera out of Dylan’s hands. When Brooks Brown comments on 
this video he says, “You don’t hear them bitching, because they’re so used to it. They don’t 
go, ‘What the hell was that?’ They go, ‘Uh-huh’ and they just move on because it’s so com-
monplace” (Columbine	Killers). While the initial frame of the targeting of jocks appears to 
be a repercussion of the bullying, it does not stand up to the reality of the shooting. Larkin 
writes, “It was clear from the outset that the target for Harris and Klebold was their peers. 
It did not matter whether they were innocent or guilty, jocks or nerds, males or females, or 
evangelicals or atheists. […] [T]hey apparently wanted to target the entire peer structure, 
in which they were at the very bottom” (63). It later became evident that very few of the 
victims of the Columbine shooting were jocks, or those perceived as responsible for the 
bullying. The initial news media coverage attempted to supply a more concrete explanation 
behind the attack, but the actuality of the attack was much darker. This aspect of the initial 
framing illustrates its equal importance to the overall conception and shaping of Columbine, 
despite its inaccuracy; framing crafts the reality of an event.

In Murder	House, the ghosts are allowed to leave the house every Halloween to traverse 
the larger world. Released from his spatial limits, Tate walks to the beach with Violet, a cur-
rent resident of the house. They are approached by a group of teenagers who are covered in 
blood and gore. They are victims of the Westfield High massacre, and they demand answers 
from Tate as to why he murdered them. Kyle, a football player for the Westfield Wolver-
ines, says to him, “You owe us an explanation. Why did you target the jocks? I never did 
anything to you” (“Halloween (Part 2)”). This scene occurs before the viewer is aware of 
the shooting, and the placement is significant as it correlates with the release of this frame 
in the news media. Before the event was actualized in society’s conception of the event, the 
intentional targeting of anyone “wearing a white hat” had already received a foundation, 
providing more reasoning behind the attack. However, when Kevin corrects Kyle saying, 
“It wasn’t just the jocks, man” (“Halloween (Part 2)”), he mirrors the news media’s inability 
to capture the explicit reasoning behind this particular frame of Columbine, alluding to the 
targeting not just of the jocks but rather the entire peer structure of the school. He alters the 
viewer’s understanding of the Westfield High shooting, illustrating the power of framing; 
the frame is just as important as the actuality of an event, as they both create reality.

Columbine inherited strong religious overtones due to the news media’s framing of 
Cassie Bernall. It was initially reported that when Eric and Dylan approached Cassie in the 
library, they asked her if she believed in God before killing her. Larkin writes, “Perhaps the 
most celebrated and bizarre aspect of the shootings was the beatification of Cassie Bernall 
as a Christian martyr who died proclaiming her faith” (39). She became immortalized with-
in the news media. This specific frame of Columbine was continued and reinforced when 
her mother released the book She	Said	Yes:	The	Unlikely	Martyrdom	of	Cassie	Bernall, 
which was a biography of Cassie highlighting her selfless act of dying to defend her faith. 
This frame helped to provide existential meaning to the event, as “the evangelical com-
munity sought to define the shootings in religious terms, as a Manichean struggle between 
good and evil” (Larkin 41). For some it provided a sense of purpose to this terrible attack. 



54Resurfacing Specters in the House of Media, Lynch

This channel of subscription in the news media inherited further attention when it was 
revealed that this conversation never took place; it occurred between Klebold and Valeen 
Schnurr, another student who was injured in the shooting. While this revelation slightly 
discredited the validity of this frame, it still played a vital role in defining Columbine. The 
perceived martyrdom of Cassie Bernall is still strongly associated with the shooting, its 
roots deep despite the martyrdom having never occurred.

In Murder	House, when the victims of the Westfield High shooting confront Tate about 
his actions, Stephanie says to him, “You asked me if I believed in God and you put a gun 
to my head. I said yes. It wasn’t even true when I said yes. And then you pulled the trigger” 
(“Halloween (Part 2)”). This scene aids in the representation of Columbine through the 
Westfield High shooting, and it internalizes the religious overtones associated with Colum-
bine. There exists another layer of depth within this encounter. When Stephanie says, “It 
wasn’t even true when I said yes” she represents the ambiguity wrapped up in this conver-
sation. The following episode in the series begins with the victims of the library killing in 
Westfield High hearing gunshots down the hallway. This is the most substantial physical al-
lusion to Columbine. The worst of the Columbine shootings took place in the library, where 
ten students were murdered and many more were injured. The library became a centrality 
in the representation and memory of Columbine. When Tate enters the library at Westfield 
High, he stalks around until he finds where the victims are hiding. When he encounters 
Stephanie, there is no dialogue exchange between them, another nod to the ambiguity of the 
matter, as it was revealed that that conversation did not occur with Cassie Bernall, another 
ghostly presence housed within the news media’s framing. This further emphasizes the 
power of framing, as it was inaccurate when covering Cassie’s martyrdom. That aspect of 
Columbine still represents the shooting in a manner. The frame continues to have placement 
even though it is not true.

Perhaps the most surprising frame of the coverage of Columbine focused on the media’s 
influence on Eric and Dylan, specifically video games, music, and film. Eric and Dylan 
both played video games such as Doom and Quake, violent first-person shooters. The news 
media attributed the violence in these video games as base inspiration for the two boys, 
fueling their subsurface violent natures. The news media also targeted music artists such as 
KMFDM and Marilyn Manson, claiming that the music promoted violence and aggression. 
Through framing these artists in this negative light, the salience was refueled, and society 
had another entity in which to project reason, another face in which to project fear. By 
refocusing the eye, the mosaic looms larger. The representation of this frame within Murder	
House is much more subtle, and it is not revealed until the tenth episode in the season. On 
the morning of the Westfield High shooting, after Tate suffers his mental breakdown, he sits 
on his bed, awake before his alarm clock. The clock goes off briefly, blaring heavy metal 
music. Albeit brief, this reference directly embodies this aspect of framing. The news media 
would study Tate’s habits, and heavy metal music would fall under scrutiny.

When discussing the event in their journals, Eric and Dylan referred to the day as NBK, 
which stood for Natural	Born	Killers, a movie that both boys admired (Columbine	Killers). 
The film focuses on mass murderers Mallory and Mickey Knox, who are idolized by the 
news media, turning them into superstars. The news media in the film glorify their actions, 
inherently giving them power and immortality. Eric and Dylan viewed themselves in the 
same Godlike limelight, foreseeing their preservation within the house of media, capable 
of resurfacing and disrupting the societal timeline. Peter Conrad points out that “They were 
looking forward, they said, to returning as ‘ghosts’ to create ‘flashbacks’ in the minds of 



55Resurfacing Specters in the House of Media, Lynch

survivors: they expected to have an afterlife as celluloid phantoms, images flickering in the 
collective unconsciousness.” In their minds, the boys already existed as ghosts, immortal-
ized in media. Also in their journals the boys wrote that if a movie was made about NBK 
they wanted it directed by Quentin Tarantino or Steven Spielberg (Columbine	Killers). In 
Murder	House Tate specifically tells Violet that he loves Quentin Tarantino, implying his 
equal fascination with similar violent media. This explicit connection progresses the viewer 
along the same avenue, leading eventually to the media-saturated framing of Columbine. 
The news media would cover the Westfield High shooting in the same light as Columbine, 
and the influence of media would naturally be brought into focus. Although video games 
wouldn’t be brought into question, violent media would be examined.
Murder	House is a house of media, which houses a room that reflects the internalization 

of media framing. After Tate murders fifteen of his fellow classmates, he returns home to 
the Murder House, where a SWAT team surrounds him in his room. After reaching for a 
gun beneath his pillow, he is killed, and the house inherits his soul, therefore inheriting 
the media-saturated essence of Columbine. In his theoretical work The	Poetics	of	Space, 
Gaston Bachelard writes, “[T]hanks to the house, a great many of our memories are housed. 
[…] Here space is everything, for time ceases to quicken memory. […] Memories are mo-
tionless, and the more securely they are fixed in space, the sounder they are” (8-9). Media 
houses memories, fixes them within its spatial confines, solidifies the occurrence of the 
event within a linear timeline. Through the house of media the ghost can inhabit and remain 
in a perpetual spiral, flickering images in a house of images that create solidity. Bachelard 
dissects the house, writing, “A house constitutes a body of images that give mankind proofs 
or illusions of stability. We are constantly re-imagining its reality: to distinguish all these 
images would be to describe the soul of the house” (17). The physicality of the Murder 
House is created through the non-linear storytelling of the show. It is stitched together frame 
by frame, room by room throughout the season. The images of the house form a mosaic 
that constitutes stability and substance, but the actuality of the Murder House is constantly 
re-imagined soul by inherited soul, as its reality is reinterpreted. Similarly, the house of me-
dia is composed of a body of images, the framing of the images provide illusions of stability 
through providing answers and explanations. In the instance of Columbine, the house is 
composed of news coverage, home video footage, and documentaries, all of which provide 
proof of stability. When these frames are picked from the mosaic and analyzed, a clearer 
picture forms of the essence of the house. Tate is confined to the spatial limitations of the 
Murder House, just as Eric and Dylan are confined to the house of media; the specters drift 
within the house, continuing to resurface.

While framing revives and revitalizes a story within the moment, it also fixes the per-
spective of a story in linearity. “‘Space’ and ‘time’ are two of the most important dimen-
sions pertinent to the coverage of any news events. [...] Therefore, the proposed measure-
ment scheme for media frames is grounded in the time and space dimensions” (Chyi and 
McCombs 24-25). The Columbine school shooting is established and fixed in space and 
time within the house of media: April 20, 1999, in Littleton, Colorado. While the frames 
of the event were also established in the initial coverage of the event, they inherit a ghostly 
quality since they constantly resurface. It is difficult to discuss a mass shooting, especially 
a school shooting without associating it with Columbine, the most-cited school shooting in 
the United States. It presented a new fashion by which media could produce its own haunts 
through framing, in which an event is solidified and grounded in a specific space and time, 
while the frames in which it is presented perpetuate and resurface in the linear timeline. 



56Resurfacing Specters in the House of Media, Lynch

Both the Murder House, as well as the larger Media House are haunted by spirits that exist 
in resurgence. The news media still employ the same framing techniques that were estab-
lished in the coverage of Columbine. Glenn W. Muschert writes, “First, journalists were 
unable to a draw on previous media frames in covering Columbine, and therefore were 
forced to develop new frames of coverage for this incident” (165). The specific attributes 
of the ghost were fixed in the initial coverage, and it becomes impossible to view the ghost 
without relying upon these prescriptive attributes. Through media, and news media framing, 
the abstract attributes are just as powerful as viewing the physical specter; specific frames 
of Columbine are as much a part of the ghost as the physicality of a photo or video of one 
of the victims or perpetrators.

The frames, ghosts, and essence of Columbine continuously resurface within the house 
of media, both physically as well as through the abstract conjuring of framing. Docu-
mentaries and movies about Columbine perpetuate the presence of Eric and Dylan in the 
media. Home videos and footage of news coverage on April 20, 1999, consistently form the 
body of documentaries about Columbine, such as The	Columbine	Killers and Zero	Hour. 
The boys were interested in video productions and made home movies with their friends. 
The documentary The	Columbine	Killers relies heavily upon media produced by Eric and 
Dylan, such as diary entries and home videos, revealing the darkness that lingered below 
the surface of the boys, using the media to create a more substantial explanation of the rea-
soning behind the attack. Another pivotal scene often used in coverage of Columbine is the 
security footage from the cafeteria, on which viewers witness Eric and Dylan, carrying their 
firearms, stride across the screen. This scene is one of the most visceral images related with 
Columbine, as it represents a raw physicality of the event itself. The most notorious videos 
are much darker though. In a series of videos known as the “basement videotapes,” the boys 
documented their plans as well as captured the means to carry out their plans, revealing the 
arsenal of firearms procured and homemade bombs produced with which to set the plan into 
motion. These particular tapes procure an overwhelming ghostly quality, as they are not 
available to the public. Michael Moore’s Bowling	for	Columbine takes a different approach, 
exploring the different frames of Columbine, and the perpetuation of those frames, rather 
than the shooting itself. The film explores gun control issues, as well as the media’s influ-
ence on Eric and Dylan, providing an interview with Marilyn Manson, who fell under the 
fire of the news media. This documentary, although not explicitly about the Columbine 
shooting, uses the frames attached to the news media coverage of the event, revealing their 
ability to conjure the spirit of Columbine.
Murder	House is not the first fictionalized Media House to present an incarnation of Col-

umbine. Gus van Sant’s Elephant presents a dramatized account in which the present mani-
festations of Eric and Dylan (one of whom is appropriately named Eric) are bullied by their 
peers and plot to bring guns to their school. In their time outside of class they are shown 
playing violent first-person shooter video games. The film Zero	Day is told through the 
home video footage of two boys, who meticulously plan and carry out a mass shooting at 
their school. The shooting itself is portrayed through the perspective of the school’s security 
cameras, adding another ghostly layer by furthering the connection between the two events. 
2005 saw the release of Super	Columbine	Massacre	RPG!, a role-playing video game that 
takes place on the day of the shooting, at Columbine High School. Players are presented 
with a more visceral manifestation of the ghosts when given the option to play as either Eric 
or Dylan, and carry out the shooting through a video game. The physical events of Col-
umbine are fixed in the linear timeline on 20 April 1999; the ghosts of the event continue 



57Resurfacing Specters in the House of Media, Lynch

to resurface within the house of media. The boys foresaw their return as “ghosts” to create 
“flashbacks,” and their doubled selves continue to surface through various incarnations, 
inheriting uncanny qualities, as they are established, familiar specters wearing new faces.

Columbine had several societal repercussions outside of the house of media, although the 
coverage and framing created perspective of the event, and influenced the public’s interpre-
tation. Murder	House is well aware of the news media coverage that Columbine received 
and forces the viewer to perpetuate this same coverage when examining the Westfield High 
massacre, which would in effect receive the same frames to continue the salience, as well 
nearly identical societal repercussions. In his book Terror	Post	9/11	and	the	Media, David 
Altheide argues, “[T]he extensive coverage and framing of the Columbine shootings con-
tributed to the broad discourse of fear as well as a more specific context for worrying about 
and protecting children, legitimating the war on terror, and expanding social control” (118). 
This incident escalated the severity of repercussions and punishments of youth violence and 
disciplinary problems. It increased the drive for school security through the pursuit of more 
lock downs, more security surveillance systems, and stricter gun control, while increasing 
public support of these issues through constant news coverage. The Westfield High shooting 
would naturally bring all of these concerns to the surface, calling forth stronger security in 
schools across the nation, raising questions concerning stricter gun control, and questioning 
how Tate procured the guns in the first place. When Tate murdered his fellow classmates he 
set into motion the machine of news media coverage and framing, which would frame the 
attack in a manner that contributed to the discourse of fear. His actions would be viewed 
as an attack on class structure and religion—American pillars of structure. However, this 
terrifying act omits an element of Columbine that is housed specifically within the America 
on this side of the mirror.

Columbine presented society with a new niche of horror—that of a “new breed of killer. 
Armed with a gun, a camera, and a computer, they use dehumanizing technology to turn 
bedroom cyber fantasies into bloody reality” (Conrad). Eric and Dylan existed in an artifi-
cial world, removed from reality through technology and media: reality and fiction blurred 
together through extensive virtual existence through video games; they saw themselves 
as Mickey and Mallory Knox, already immortalized in the house of media; they blogged 
religiously, posting rants and fueling aggression, occasionally posting the plans and inten-
tions of “NBK,” already creating virtual echoes of their existence; when they produced the 
basement tapes the camera removed them from reality. The entire essence of Columbine is 
documented and captured within media. It lingers and haunts the societal timeline, resur-
recting and thriving in the constant resurgence and exposure. The most notable resurfacing 
of this particular type of specter is Seung-Hui Cho, who murdered 32 people on the Virginia 
Tech Campus on April 16, 2007. The rampage was broken into two concentrated attacks; 
in between the outbursts Cho visited a post office to send a package to NBC containing 
a DVD of a long, angry diatribe detailing his motives for the attack, as well as photos 
of himself posing with weapons. In his tirade he refers to “martyrs like Eric and Dylan” 
(ABC), which brings about a clear mirror of Columbine, bringing about the essence of 
this particular specter, which the boys foreshadowed and instigated. The video and photos 
immortalize Cho in the house of media, and this physicality was used in the framing of the 
Virginia Tech massacre. Cho’s video mirrors the basement tapes, as well as the Columbine 
cafeteria security footage, creating a face in which to house the atrocities that were enacted. 
The documentary Virginia	Tech	Massacre reveals, “At age 15 he displayed a disturbing new 
interest. Shortly after the Columbine shootings he wrote an essay at school that alarmed his 



58Resurfacing Specters in the House of Media, Lynch

teachers. There was no threat against anyone, but he did talk about identifying with [Eric 
and Dylan]” (Virginia	Tech	Massacre). Cho was haunted by the specters of Columbine, 
and he perpetuated this thread of horror when he methodically planned the Virginia Tech 
shooting and captured his ghost in the video and photos he sent to NBC. When new events 
and new ghosts present themselves, it is inevitable that they will wear similar faces as those 
who already resided in the house, especially if the established specters have experienced as 
consistent resurgence as Columbine.
Murder	House was released after the advent of this particular ghost, and it is clearly 

aware of the specters in the house of media. Tate does not inherently fit the American horror 
that he symbolizes—several studies of school shootings agree that school shootings are not 
spontaneous events; the perpetrator often announces his intentions. When Eric and Dylan 
were planning “Columbine” they drew inspiration from the Oklahoma City bombing, the 
Westside middle school shooting in Jonesboro, Arkansas, and the Waco siege in Texas. 
The destruction discussed in the original plans of “NBK” in their journals far exceeded the 
fatality and destruction of the Oklahoma City bombing. Their intent was to “outdo” that 
event: they planted three propane bombs in the cafeteria, with a timed detonation intended 
to explode when the cafeteria would be at its fullest capacity. The explosion was also meant 
to collapse the roof of the cafeteria, causing the library to fall into the cafeteria. If success-
ful, this plan would have killed close to 500 students. Although school shootings and acts of 
violence in schools had occurred in the past, none of the perpetrators “engaged in long-term 
planning, collected explosives and weaponry, employed diversionary tactics, reconnoitered 
their school, tested their weaponry, or thought about killing hundreds of students, devising 
ways that would maximize destruction” (Larkin 155). In Murder	House, Tate acts impul-
sively, responding to his troubles and frustrations at home with outward violence. The 
absence of premeditation in the Westfield High shooting emphasizes the meticulousness 
behind the planning of both the Columbine and Virginia Tech shootings. It causes the view-
er to focus on the motives behind the shooting, and one is given a glimpse at a much darker 
picture, emphasizing that Tate is merely an incarnation of the ghost, only representing the 
horror on the surface. What emerges as the true horror is not found within the surface ghost, 
but within the absence presented in the framing, in which lurks the lingering ghoul, waiting 
to disrupt the channel.

The media-saturated essence of this event presented society with a new niche of terror, 
and the framing methods set into motion in the coverage of Columbine continue to be used 
as more media-saturated mass murders occur. Columbine stands as a tipping point: mass 
shootings after 1999 are compared to Columbine. The house of media is a haunted place, 
occupied by terrifying figures, entombed forever in the body of images in which the specter 
resides, more than capable of truly haunting this American society. Murder	House invokes 
the specters of Eric and Dylan and brings them forth from the house of media in which they 
reside, spatial constraints exhibited through the constant framing/reframing, drawing out 
the salience of their actions, solidifying their presence and the repercussions caused by their 
actions. By creating this mirror the show causes the viewer to stumble into a specter within 
the societal timeline; the reflection causes the viewer to reinterpret the origin of source, as 
it is both foreign and familiar. Perhaps in the mirror America presented in American	Horror	
Story:	Murder	House there exists an alternate version of American	Horror	Story:	Murder	
House, in which events from this side of the mirror are presented. The thought is terrifying.



59Resurfacing Specters in the House of Media, Lynch

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Altheide, David L. Terror	Post	9/11	and	the	Media. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2009. Print.

Bachelard, Gaston. The	Poetics	of	Space. Trans. Maria Jolas. New York: The Orion Press, 
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Chyl, Hsiang Iris, and Maxwell McCombs. “Media Salience and the Process of Framing: 
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Conrad, Peter. “Misfits on a mission to delete us all: The young Finn who last month 
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CrimeUncovered. “The Columbine Killers—Mass School Shooting Crime Documentary.” 
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CrimeUncovered. “Virginia Tech Massacre—Mass School Shooting Crime Documentary.” 
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“Gunman mailed package between shooting.” ABC 11. 19 April 2007. Web. 4 February 2014.

“Halloween (Part 2).” American	Horror	Story:	Murder	House. Writ. Tim Minear. Dir. 
David Semel. FX, 2011. Web. 17 September 2013.

Larkin, Ralph W. Comprehending	Columbine. Philadelphia: Temple University, 2007. Print.

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