Perpetrator witnessing: Testing the norms and forms of witnessing through livestreaming terror attacks

Abstract

This article studies perpetrator livestreams as an emerging witnessing genre in today’s digital media circuit. Perpetrator livestreams challenge the norms of witnessing by undermining the ethos traditionally associated with testimonies. They also challenge the forms of witnessing by being integral to the attacks and disseminated across media. Combining scholarship on witnessing and liveness, this article proposes a conceptual framework for understanding perpetrator livestreaming as a witnessing genre, which falls into the three phases pre-mediation, mediation, and re-mediation. Moreover, a prominent example of perpetrator witnessing is analyzed: the livestreaming of the terror attack on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 2019.