The assassination of JFK is an event that is universally imbedded within cultural discourse. It is not an event that is confined to American political history. Rather the assassination and the system of information that delivers and deliberates what the public may access is as cultural as it is historical.

Since November 22 1963, the public has been misinformed and omitted from the process of history making. For this reason the unknowing has manifested itself into part of the vernacular of popular culture. "Who shot JFK?" has become a question we do not expect an answer to and if we did receive one now would we believe it?

The assassination of JFK is mythic and as such the question of knowledge and wilful unknowing of information in turn dominates popular discourse.

The JFK assassination is referenced in film, television, literature, song, art and in thought that is founded upon the assumption we, the public, are misinformed, which can be described as a conspiracy culture.

The coverage of this subject on the World Wide Web illustrates the efficiency of the Web as a "vehicle to connect with larger and more diverse audiences" than other historical literature.

The coverage of the JFK assassination on the web is divided between source and interpretive based sites. The interpretation presented hinges on the fact not all the information relating to the assassination is available. Knowledge (and truth) becomes the fundamental issue upon which coverage on the web is created. The withholding of information has become mythic providing the motivation for people ranging from the amateur to the professional to create their own history and contribute to the extensive discourse.

This in part explains the wide appeal of JFK's assassination as a topic for debate on the World Wide Web. The incredible array of material the assassination has spawned on the web attests to its cultural prominence. A google search will deliver tens of thousands of sites that relate to the assassination in a fraction of a second. The number of books and print based text is significantly less. The question becomes, does the quantitative advantage of web coverage extend to quality of content?

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Who Shot JFK? Who Shot JR? Who shot Mr Burns?

The shift from fact to fiction is relatively seamless as the inconclusive nature of the fact allows for a superficial resolution within fiction. We know who shot JR in Dallas and we know who shot Mr Burns in The Simpsons. We know Oswald's motivation in DeLillo's Libra when the opportunity was not granted in reality.

Peter Knight begins his foray into the conspiratorial corners of popular culture with the following provocation: conspiracy theories are no longer the "delusional rantings" of the fringe elements in society, but rather constitute "many people's normal way of thinking about who they are and how the world works."

Barbie Zelizer, Covering the Body: The Kennedy Assassination, the Media, and the Shaping of Collective Memory. University of Chicago Press, 1993

Marcus Raskin, "JFK and the Culture of Violence," American Historical Review, 97, Apr. 1992

Post-Camelot: The Kennedy Obsession

Kennedy and his family became fodder for popular culture, this fascination only intensified after death.