Introduction
The story of Aaron Hernandez, a former NFL star who transitioned from Super Bowl glory to a murder conviction and ultimately, suicide in prison, captivated and confounded the American public. In 2017, following his death, Hernandez was posthumously diagnosed with Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative brain disease linked to repeated head trauma and associated with symptoms like aggression, depression, and cognitive decline. This diagnosis dramatically altered the narrative surrounding Hernandez. This article delves into how news media portrayed Aaron Hernandez, specifically focusing on the shift in discourse before and after his CTE diagnosis. By analyzing newspaper coverage of key events in Hernandez’s life – from murder charges and conviction to his suicide and the subsequent CTE diagnosis – we explore how the understanding of his actions and subjectivity evolved in the public eye. We find that initially, media narratives focused on personal failings and societal factors, but the CTE diagnosis introduced a medical lens that profoundly reshaped the understanding of Hernandez’s tragic trajectory.
Literature Review
Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE)
Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) is a neurodegenerative disease characterized by a range of symptoms including irritability, impulsivity, aggression, depression, short-term memory loss, and suicidal tendencies. As the disease progresses, it can lead to more severe neurological issues like dementia, gait and speech abnormalities, and parkinsonism. The primary risk factor for CTE is believed to be repetitive mild traumatic brain injury. This has led to significant concern regarding athletes in contact sports, particularly football, where repeated head impacts are common. While high-profile cases and studies have linked CTE to contact sports, significant uncertainties remain about its definitive diagnosis, prevalence, and the exact causal relationship between sports-related concussions and CTE. Despite ongoing debates and research, the potential link between contact sports and long-term brain damage has been a growing concern for decades, gaining significant public attention in the 21st century.
The 2005 publication of “Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy in a National Football League Player,” detailing the autopsy of NFL player Mike Webster’s brain, marked a turning point. This study highlighted neuropathological changes consistent with long-term repetitive concussive brain injury, bringing CTE into the forefront of public consciousness. The subsequent film and book “League of Denial” and the movie “Concussion” further amplified awareness of CTE and the NFL’s alleged attempts to downplay its findings. This “post-Webster” era has been characterized by a growing perception that CTE is an existential threat to football, leading to discussions about the sport’s future and the long-term health of its players.
In response to mounting pressure and scientific findings, the NFL has implemented rule changes aimed at reducing concussions and increased resources for former players with neurodegenerative conditions. This evolving landscape has also prompted social science research into the medicalization of concussion and its impact on understandings of masculinity and subjectivity within sports culture. Initially, athletes were often seen as “informed soldiers” accepting the risks of bodily injury in pursuit of sporting glory. However, the emergence of CTE discourse has challenged this narrative, suggesting that athletes may not have fully understood or accepted the risks of brain injuries.
Scholars argue that increased awareness of CTE is contributing to a shift in how masculinity is expressed in sports, potentially creating space for non-hegemonic forms. Media analyses have explored the multifaceted nature of CTE, portraying it as a medical diagnosis, a scientific object, a cultural phenomenon, and a lived experience. However, it’s also noted that uncertainties surrounding CTE diagnosis have been used to downplay its significance and hinder action. Furthermore, research indicates that the way CTE discourse is received and understood by individual players can be significantly influenced by race. The central question emerging from this body of literature is how CTE has reshaped our understanding of sporting cultures and subjects, particularly when viewed through a medical and neuroscientific lens. This article contributes to this discussion by examining the Aaron Hernandez case, exploring how media representations of athletes are influenced by biomedical knowledge.
Biomedicine, Neuroscience, and Media Representation
Neuroscience has become increasingly prominent in popular media, often presented in a positive and non-critical light. While journalism and media studies have been somewhat less engaged in analyzing this trend, medical sociology and science and technology studies have extensively explored the impact of biomedicine on our understanding of personhood. Scholars argue that scientific and medical facts, particularly in neuroscience, significantly shape how we perceive ourselves, our bodies, and others. This process, termed “objective self-fashioning,” suggests that biomedicine is playing an increasingly important role in shaping identity. Concepts like “biosociality,” “neurochemical selves,” “brainhood,” and “cerebral selves” have emerged to describe how neurological discourse influences self-understanding. Media plays a crucial role in this process, contributing to a cultural understanding of the brain as central to self and potentially promoting “neuro-essentialism,” equating the brain with the self.
This biomedical understanding of personhood has significant implications, particularly concerning responsibility and governance. If conditions like alcoholism, cancer, or criminal behavior are attributed to brain biology, individuals may be seen as less morally culpable for their actions. Conversely, new biological knowledge can also lead to novel responsibilities, such as in the context of genetic predispositions like Huntington’s Disease, where individuals may face new obligations related to life planning. Furthermore, equating individuals with their brain states can lead to increased calls for monitoring and governing those deemed to have “risky brains.” In this context, the brain becomes an “index of difference,” potentially leading to the “Othering” of individuals with perceived neurological risks, creating a dichotomy between “normal” and “monstrous” individuals.
However, it’s important to approach claims of a complete “neurologization” of personhood with caution. Some research suggests that the impact of neuroscience on concepts of responsibility and self-control may be more superficial than transformative. Neuroscience may be assimilated into existing frameworks of understanding rather than fundamentally changing them. Moreover, studies question the extent to which individuals actually incorporate biomedical knowledge into their self-understanding.
Methodologically, much research in this area focuses on media content already known to be relevant to neuroscience, potentially leading to a biased perspective. To understand the broader societal diffusion of biomedicine and neuroscience, it’s crucial to examine instances where neuroscientific discourses are absent, not just present. Similarly, concussion media studies often focus on articles specifically about brain injury, which is valuable for understanding the construction of concussion as a diagnosis, but may not fully capture the broader cultural resonance of CTE. To assess whether CTE has genuinely permeated culture and become a common framework for understanding athletes’ actions, analysis must extend beyond pre-selected moments of known relevance.
Aaron Hernandez: A Case Study
The case of Aaron Hernandez provides a unique opportunity to examine the broader cultural impact of CTE discourse on understandings of sporting subjectivity. Hernandez was a highly successful football player at the high school, college, and NFL levels. His achievements include setting records, winning a national championship with the Florida Gators, and scoring a touchdown in the 2012 Super Bowl for the New England Patriots, leading to a lucrative contract.
However, Hernandez’s life took a dark turn. In June 2013, Odin Lloyd, who was dating the sister of Hernandez’s fiancée, was murdered. Hernandez was arrested for the murder shortly after. While in prison, he was further charged with the 2012 double murder of Safiro Furtado and Daniel de Abreu. In 2015, Hernandez was convicted of murdering Odin Lloyd and sentenced to life imprisonment. In April 2017, he was acquitted in the double murder case. Days later, he died by suicide in his prison cell. Following his death, his family had his brain examined for CTE, and months later, Boston University confirmed he had severe CTE.
The Hernandez case is methodologically significant for several reasons. First, all events occurred in the “post-Webster era,” a period marked by heightened awareness of CTE. Second, the posthumous diagnosis confirms the relevance of neurodegenerative disease to understanding Hernandez’s actions, at least in retrospect. Third, and crucially, the CTE diagnosis came after significant media coverage of his crimes and suicide. This timeline allows us to investigate whether and how CTE discourse was present in media narratives before the diagnosis, revealing the depth and pervasiveness of this discourse in contemporary media.
Method
Newspaper Sample
To analyze media discourse, a diverse sample of US newspapers was selected, representing a range of geographical locations and readership. The chosen outlets were The Boston Globe (BG), The New York Post (NYP), The New York Times (NYT), USA Today (USAT), The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), and The Washington Post (WP). These publications were chosen for their large circulation and national reach.
Date Range and Event Selection
Data was collected using keyword searches in digital archives of these newspapers. The search term “Aaron Hernandez” was used to identify relevant articles. Duplicate articles were removed to ensure a unique dataset. The analysis focused on print editions for consistency. Six key events in the Aaron Hernandez story were identified as focal points for data collection:
- The murder of Odin Lloyd
- The arrest of Aaron Hernandez for the murder of Lloyd
- The arrest of Hernandez for the murders of Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado
- The conviction of Hernandez for the murder of Lloyd
- The suicide of Aaron Hernandez
- The announcement of Hernandez’s CTE diagnosis
For each event, all articles published within two weeks following the event date that included “Aaron Hernandez” were included in the sample. This approach resulted in a sample of 240 articles, capturing media coverage across these significant moments in Hernandez’s story.
Analytical Framework
The analysis considered “timing, topic, and newspaper type” as relevant factors in media reporting of neuroscience, as noted by Atteveldt (2014). However, the primary focus was on changes in narratives over time, rather than comparing different publications. The central aim was to examine the construction of Aaron Hernandez as a subject in media discourse, paying particular attention to questions of causality (why did these events happen?), culpability (who or what is responsible?), and kinship (who is Hernandez compared to or grouped with?).
To answer these questions, a mixed-method approach was used, combining inductive thematic analysis and Foucauldian discourse analysis. Thematic analysis, as described by Thomas (2006), was used to identify recurring themes in the media coverage, such as the emphasis on Hernandez’s father’s death as a causal factor. Foucauldian discourse analysis, inspired by Parker (1999) and Foucault (2002), focused on how media texts “form the objects of which they speak.” This involved identifying key subjects (e.g., Aaron Hernandez, NFL), objects (e.g., brain, cars), and places (e.g., prison, Bristol) within the articles and analyzing the terms and descriptions associated with them. For example, the frequent description of Hernandez as “emotionless” was analyzed to understand how his subjectivity was constructed.
This combination of thematic and discourse analysis allowed for an examination of both the topics emphasized in media coverage and the way Aaron Hernandez was represented linguistically, providing insights into evolving narratives of causality, culpability, and kinship across the different phases of his story. It is important to note that this analysis focuses on media discourse itself, not on the factual accuracy of the reporting or the “true” causes of Hernandez’s actions.
Analysis
Murder of Odin Lloyd
In the week following Odin Lloyd’s murder but before Aaron Hernandez’s arrest, media coverage emphasized the familiar trope of the athlete embroiled in criminal investigation. Hernandez was portrayed as joining a long list of NFL players with legal troubles. Comparisons to OJ Simpson were drawn, highlighting both criminal and aesthetic parallels, such as the “media swarm” and helicopter footage reminiscent of Simpson’s famous police chase.
Hernandez’s character was depicted as “hot-tempered” with “red flags” in his past, referencing a failed drug test. “Possible gang ties” and questionable “company he keeps” were suggested, along with potential involvement in another shooting. While acknowledging that Hernandez was not formally a suspect initially and had never been suspended by the NFL, media coverage nonetheless fueled suspicion and noted the loss of endorsements and financial repercussions. Even at this early stage, themes of individual psychology, problematic friendships, and association with a criminal element within the NFL were emerging as explanatory frameworks.
Arrest of Aaron Hernandez for Murder of Odin Lloyd
Following Hernandez’s arrest, media narratives expanded, focusing on several key themes. His physical appearance became a point of intense scrutiny, with descriptions of his “dumb-sullen jaw,” “dead jailhouse gaze,” muscular physique, and particularly, his tattoos, which became a recurring subject of fascination.
The theme of “precedent” emerged, with extensive recounting of a bar fight Hernandez was involved in during his time at the University of Florida. The presence of Tim Tebow in this narrative, portrayed as Hernandez’s moral opposite – “mild-mannered,” “God-fearing,” and “beloved” – heightened the contrast and underscored Hernandez’s perceived deviance. Past incidents, including the alleged shooting of a friend and emerging links to the double murders of Fertado and de Abreu, were also highlighted.
Psychological characterizations of Hernandez intensified. He was repeatedly described as “emotionless” or displaying “little emotion” in court. Labels like “agitated,” “angry,” “furious,” “immature,” and possessing “low self-esteem” were used. He was portrayed as “cold-blooded,” with some media outlets even suggesting he could be the NFL’s first “serial killer.” Personality test results from before the NFL draft, revealing “low social maturity” and a penchant for “living on the edge,” were also brought into the narrative.
Explanations for Hernandez’s behavior primarily fell into two categories. “Psychosocial” factors emphasized his “rocky life” growing up in Bristol, Connecticut, particularly the death of his father during his teenage years, which was repeatedly cited as a pivotal event. His association with “rough-and-tumble” crowds in “hardscrabble” Bristol, “thug associates,” “sordid characters,” and “gangbangers” were also highlighted. “Celebrity” was sometimes woven into this narrative, suggesting a “rich jock culture” contributing to his behavior.
A racialized dimension was subtly present, though rarely explicit. One article in the NYP blamed “culture” for Hernandez’s actions and lamented the lack of attention to “elephant-in-the-room matters” by leaders, including the “first black president.” Terms like “thug” and “gangbanger,” while not explicitly racial, carry racialized connotations, particularly when applied to young men of color. Given that Hernandez’s co-defendants, fiancée, and victim were African American, as were many of the other NFL players mentioned in connection to criminal activity, a racial subtext was discernible within the media coverage.
The second explanatory theme was “institutional enablement,” focusing on the NFL, New England Patriots, University of Florida, and ESPN as entities that “looked the other way” or enabled Hernandez’s “spiraling out of control.” The University of Florida’s football program was described as having an “unsavory underbelly” with numerous player arrests, despite legal support for players. Coach Urban Meyer was criticized for “inviting and indulging dangerous, criminally inclined players.” The Patriots were seen as repeatedly “taking a chance” on players like Hernandez, and the NFL was portrayed as having “been here before” with player misconduct.
Crucially, in the 98 articles published after Hernandez’s arrest, there was no mention of CTE or neurodegenerative disease. Explanations centered on psychosocial factors, racialized associations, and institutional failures, demonstrating that despite the growing awareness of CTE, these pre-existing narratives were more readily deployed to understand Hernandez’s behavior.
Arrest of Aaron Hernandez for Murder of Safiro Fertado and Daniel de Abreu
The arrest for the double murders of Fertado and de Abreu did not fundamentally alter media discourse, but introduced new nuances. A primary focus became how to categorize Hernandez’s crimes. An article in USAT questioned whether he was a “gangster” rather than a “serial killer,” arguing that his actions aligned more with “old school mobster” behavior and a “street code,” based on a forensic psychiatrist’s assessment that Hernandez displayed emotions and social connections unlike typical serial killers. A WP article similarly pondered if he was a “spree killer” or “gang killer.” However, this WP article also emphasized Hernandez’s deviation from other NFL players committing crimes, portraying his actions as “buried deep in him,” “an extreme anomaly,” and “profoundly unnatural,” suggesting an internal, psychological explanation rather than a broader systemic or CTE-related cause.
Conviction of Aaron Hernandez
Media coverage following Hernandez’s conviction for Odin Lloyd’s murder largely continued established themes. His psychology remained a central focus, still described as “prone to anger,” “impassive,” and showing “little emotion.” The BG went so far as to diagnose him as a “sociopath.” Explanations for his psychology reiterated the impact of his father’s death and his upbringing in “hardscrabble” Bristol, portrayed as a town with “petty criminals,” from which Hernandez “never fully separated.”
“Institutional enablement” resurfaced as a theme, with accusations that Hernandez was “shielded from wrongdoing,” “not held accountable,” and treated with “wonderment” due to his athletic talent. Media emphasized the role of coaches, agents, hangers-on, and even fans in “enabling their boorish behavior” and making Hernandez believe he was above the law. Unsurprisingly, Hernandez continued to be grouped with other NFL players who had committed crimes, reinforcing the narrative of a problematic culture within professional football.
Suicide of Aaron Hernandez
Even after Hernandez’s suicide and the subsequent public discussion about his brain being examined for CTE, media coverage did not immediately shift towards a neurobiological explanation. While Hernandez’s family sending his brain for CTE testing and the ensuing “battle for the brain” became a spectacle, explicit reporting on CTE remained limited. The NYT published a piece noting the link between CTE and aggression, mentioning suicides of other NFL players with CTE. The NYP and BG briefly mentioned the brain release and included statements about the brain, but there was minimal integration of CTE into discussions of Hernandez’s behavior or subjectivity.
Instead, two other themes gained prominence. “Swirling rumors” about Hernandez’s sexuality emerged, with claims of bisexuality being his “most guarded secret” and speculation about a “prison beau” and a suicide note. The BG also contextualized Hernandez’s suicide within the broader issue of prison suicides in Massachusetts, highlighting systemic failures in the state’s prison system. Beyond these additions, the dominant narrative remained consistent with previous coverage, reiterating themes of ego, father’s death, negative influences from Bristol, and a general “fall from grace” narrative.
Diagnosis of CTE
The posthumous diagnosis of CTE marked a significant turning point in media coverage. Several notable shifts occurred. First, while acknowledging uncertainties surrounding CTE – such as the post-mortem diagnosis, limitations of brain bank samples, and confounding factors like drug use – media outlets readily applied CTE to explain football, violence, suicide, and Aaron Hernandez’s individual case. It became a “natural presumption” that CTE contributed to murder-suicide and “may explain his prison suicide.” One NYT op-ed explicitly suggested CTE could equate to insanity, potentially legally excusing violent actions of former NFL players and directly linking CTE to Hernandez’s suicide.
This direct link between football, CTE, and violence was portrayed as potentially catastrophic for “Football Inc.” With the CTE diagnosis, “Aaron Hernandez just became the most dangerous man in football.” Media predicted the NFL’s attempts to distance itself from CTE would fail, and that the league would “own” Hernandez’s death. This forceful tone, linking institutional accountability to CTE, contrasts with previous research suggesting only superficial changes in responsibility attributions following neuroscientific explanations in media.
Second, a narrative of inevitability emerged, suggesting the CTE diagnosis was “hardly surprising” and should have been “no surprise” given “ample evidence” of CTE even when Hernandez was arrested in 2013. The NYT claimed questions about CTE’s role in Hernandez’s violence and suicide were raised “at the time” of his 2015 conviction. However, this analysis reveals that these questions were not present in the sampled media coverage prior to the CTE diagnosis.
Third, the CTE diagnosis shifted Hernandez’s “kinship,” or who he was seen as similar to. Previously grouped with criminal NFL players, post-diagnosis narratives broadened this kinship. He was still linked to NFL players, but now including those living in fear of CTE and those who had died by suicide. His aggression was now understood in relation to dementia, framing “uncharacteristic aggression” as relatable to dementia caregivers. Parental concerns also emerged, with parents questioning the risks of allowing children to play football, fearing they might be “consigning their kids to a jail cell or the morgue.”
This shift suggests that CTE, contrary to theories of “Othering” based on neurological difference, actually brought Hernandez closer to the “normal” population. This occurred through two mechanisms: “Clinical and pathological parallels” with dementia, a more common and relatable condition often associated with “loss of self,” normalized Hernandez’s aggression as a symptom of neurodegeneration rather than inherent monstrousness. Secondly, CTE, as an acquired condition linked to football, implicated a broader population in Hernandez’s story. Football, a widely participated in and watched sport, meant that many, including readers and their children, could be seen as sharing a potential risk factor with Hernandez, “responsibilizing” parents and custodians and blurring the lines between “normal” and “Other.” The discourse shifted to a space between acquired brain injury, dementia-related behavior, and shared parental anxieties.
Conclusion
Following Aaron Hernandez’s suicide, media outlets described his story as a “true American horror story,” “grim American tale,” and “American tragedy.” His trajectory from sports stardom to violent crime and suicide indeed resonates deeply with contemporary American anxieties. This analysis examined the role of medicine and neurology in this narrative.
While scholars have argued for a growing “biologicalization of selfhood” and a “cultural awakening” to CTE, this study reveals a more nuanced picture. The CTE diagnosis undeniably changed the understanding of Hernandez’s behavior, questioning his culpability and normalizing his aggression through a medical lens. CTE became a significant factor in the narrative, but only after the posthumous diagnosis.
Crucially, before the diagnosis, media coverage overwhelmingly favored psychosocial explanations, racialized narratives, and institutional failures to explain Hernandez’s actions. Despite occurring in a “post-Webster era,” there was a notable absence of CTE or neurobiological discourse in media coverage of his arrests, conviction, and even suicide. Family issues, “bad influences,” individual psychology, and institutional enablement were the preferred explanatory frameworks.
This finding highlights the critical role of diagnosis in shaping the narrative. Hernandez was only fully incorporated into the CTE discourse after his post-mortem diagnosis, a unique situation compared to many other conditions discussed in biologicalization literature. This suggests that the entanglement of bio/neuroscience with selfhood is contingent on the specific characteristics of the condition in question. The delay in considering CTE as an explanation, despite later claims of its predictability, and the implications of interpellation only occurring post-mortem, raise ethical, legal, and sociological questions warranting further investigation. Future research should explore why media was slow to adopt a CTE framework and the broader consequences of this delayed recognition.
Acknowledgements
This research was supported by a Wellcome Trust Research Fellowship in Humanities and Social Science (212694/Z/18/Z) as part of the project Hard Knock Life: Negotiating concussion and dementia in sport. The author thanks Eva Haifa Giraud, Jen Birks, and anonymous peer reviewers for their contributions to this work.
Footnotes
1 Different databases were used to access articles from various newspapers. A complete list of articles is available at https://hardknocklife.hcommons.org/downloads/.
2 The two-week sampling period was adjusted for the Odin Lloyd murder, starting from Hernandez’s arrest one week after the murder.
3 While newspaper articles in the immediate aftermath of the CTE diagnosis largely drew a direct link between CTE and Hernandez’s behavior, broader media narratives, including long-form pieces, have considered a wider range of contributing factors.
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary data for this article can be found online at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2019.112598.
References
(References are identical to the original article and are not repeated here for brevity. Please refer to the original article for the full list of references.)
