ABSTRACT
In the last chapter, we examined rumors and riots from a historical perspective. In brief, we found that rumors and riots were strongly connected. We also found that a number of themes were salient; certain rumors tended to occur repeatedly-regardless of time, setting or circum stance. And, finally, we found that these themes were distributed among each race-not randomly among individ uals. These findings, however, raise some im portant ques tions: 1. How should we interpret the relationship between
rumors and collective violence? Did the rumors help cause the violence? Did the violence help cause the rumors? Or, were the rumors and the violence both caused by the same underlying process?
