To understand serial killing, we must move beyond the individual and consider background structural and cultural factors. Elliot Leyton's structural approach is seductive but problematic. In analysing serial killing as a cultural phenomenon, Mark Seltzer points to the United States as an information society characterised by ‘wound culture’. However, theorists have largely neglected the area of gender. Serial killing illustrates the nature of gender relations within our culture. Nevertheless, feminist theories and texts tend to focus solely on men murdering women, but such approaches need to be extended to cover the whole spectrum of serial killing, whether it involves heterosexual or homosexual relations, male or female killers. To understand why one individual becomes a serial killer while another will not there is a need to combine sociological and individual approaches. Using Tony Jefferson's concept of subjectivity, which combines social and psychoanalytical influences on human behaviour, is one way forward in trying to explain the phenomenon of serial killing.
Controlling and Enhancing the Information Society in the United States