Why We Love Serial Killers (46 page)

Professor Bonn is not your average academic. He combines the knowledge and skills of an academic scholar with more than twenty years of senior-level corporate experience in advertising, and the news and entertainment media. As such, he has unique insights into the public’s attitudes and beliefs, how they are shaped, and the agenda-setting powers of political leaders and the news media.

Dr. Bonn has developed a unique, integrated, and interdisciplinary theory called “critical communication” to explain how state officials (including politicians and law enforcement) and the news media together shape public opinion on complex issues such as homicide, capital punishment, drugs, abortion, and terrorism. He is the author of the critically acclaimed book
Mass Deception: Moral Panic and the US War
on Iraq
(Rutgers University Press, 2010).

Dr. Bonn received a PhD in sociology (criminology) at the University of Miami, Florida, and a master’s degree in criminal justice administration at San Jose State University. He teaches courses in criminology, sociology of deviance, media and crime, and criminal justice. His primary research interests include white-collar crime, suicide, domestic violence, serial homicide, and how the media influence society.

Prior to his academic career, Bonn held high-ranking corporate positions such as vice president at NBC Television Network, and executive vice president at SonicNet, a leading music website, now a part of MTV Networks. He resides in Manhattan, New York. Follow him on Twitter @DocBonn and visit his “Wicked Deeds” crime blog at
PsychologyToday.com
and his website
docbonn.com
.