ABSTRACT
In order to make sense of events that unsettle and threaten the ways people understand their everyday lives, so giving them some kind of handle on what is unfolding around them, the mass media often focus on the fate of particular individuals that quickly assume the status of local, national and sometimes even global icons. It is through the fate of these individuals that people are encouraged to make sense of those larger forces that have suddenly and shockingly broken into their everyday lives and routines. Sometimes people are encouraged to identify with these individuals, so feeling some resonance with their pain and a sense of relief that they could so easily have been caught up in that event.1
