Media and Terrorism in the Twenty-First

Century
■ Dramatic advances in information and communication technology affected all
people. Because terrorism thrives on communication, publicity, and propaganda,
contemporary terrorists have exploited literally all features of the Internet. (2)
■ Some scholars foresee a unified, tranquil, where people from different cultures,
races, religions, etc., and geographic locations would learn about each other—and
perhaps understand each other better. (2)
■ Benjamin Barber (1995) warned that “global media along with widely promoted and
distributed consumer goods—originating mostly in the West and especially the
United States—would alienate people and communities with deep roots in their
cultural traditions and values whether living abroad or at home in America.” (2)

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Media and Terrorism in the Twenty-First
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■ Then, there is a digital “Tower of Babel” with different tribes speaking in different
ideological, partisan, religious, ethnic, racial, and regional tongues. This result in
political violence-war and/or terrorism. (4)
■ The mass media seem uncertain when to call an obviously political act of violence
"terrorism," when to label it "crime," and when to use still other descriptions
(terrorist, criminal, attacker, bomber, guerrilla, militant, etc.). (4)
■ "In a real sense, terrorism is like pornography: You know it when you see it, but it is
impossible to come up with a universally agreed definition" (Kegley 1990, 11) (5)

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Media and Terrorism in the Twenty-First
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■ Title 22 of the United States Code, Section 2656f (d) (5):
– "Terrorism" means premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against
noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents, and is usually
intended to influence an audience.
– "International terrorism" means terrorism involving citizens or the territory of more
than one country.
– "Terrorist group" means any group practicing, or that has significant subgroups that
practice, international terrorism.
■ Interpretation of this definition:
– Terrorism Is Political (5).
– The Targets are Civilians (or Non-Combatants) (6).
– The Perpetrators of Terrorism Are Non-State Actors (7).

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Media and Terrorism in the Twenty-First
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■ 9/11 attacks or the Oklahoma City Bombing Vs. Germany under the rule of Adolf
Hitler or in the Soviet Union under the rule of Joseph Stalin. (9)
■ For some, the civilians killed in strikes are not deliberately targeted but fell into the
"collateral damage" category; thus these were not examples of terrorism. For others,
strikes are ill advised because it was likely or even certain that they would kill and
maim civilians; thus, these were examples of state terrorism. (9)
■ Mass-mediated terrorism is political violence against civilians and non-combatants
commit ted with the intention to publicize the deed, to gain publicity and thereby
public and government attention. (10)

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Media and Terrorism in the Twenty-First
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■ Governments tend to speak of collateral damage inflicted unwittingly on civilians or
innocent bystanders as regrettable consequences of war—and if possible, they keep
silent. (10)
■ In the other hand, mass-mediated counterterrorism happens when governments act
in the name of counterterrorism. (10)
■ Terrorism is violence by non-state actors that deliberately targets civilians to further
political objectives and aims for publicity. (14)

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Media and Terrorism in the Twenty-First
Century
■ Changes in communication technology created a new terrorism.(14) More lethal,
more likely to inflict catastrophic harm, and more often the work of religious or
pseudo-religious groups. (15)
■ Nacos argue that terrorism itself has not fundamentally changed, but political
violence against non-combatants operate in a different environment. (16)

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Media and Terrorism in the Twenty-First
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■ First, the collapse of communism and the end of the bipolar world order resulted in the dismantling
of a mechanism that kept terrorism within a manageable range. (18)
■ The second reason why terrorism became a serious problem is that the end of the old world order
unleashed nationalist and religious frictions that were suppressed in the past. (19).
■ The mobilization and increased activities of religious and pseudo-religious movements and groups
increased the likelihood of a type of terrorism that causes far more deaths, injuries, and damages
than secular political violence. (20)
■ Those who consider themselves God's soldiers in a holy war are not bound by the moral limitations
of secular terrorists of the past. (20)
■ The combination of religion and terrorism can be cited as one of the main reasons for terrorism's
increased lethality. The fact that for the religious terrorist violence inevitably assumes a
transcendent purpose and therefore becomes a sacramental or divine duty, arguably results in a
significant loosening of the constraints on the commission of mass murder." (Hoffman 1995, 280)
(21)

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Media and Terrorism in the Twenty-First
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■ Thirdly, another post-Cold War change playing into the hands of terrorists is that there
has been a proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.(22)
■ Finally, political change in some parts of the world has opened up channels of
communication that were controlled and censored in the past by autocratic
governments. As a result, mass-mediated terrorism has become a more at tractive
weapon. (23)
■ Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher had it right when she proclaimed that
publicity is the oxygen of terrorism. If anything has changed in the last decades, it is the
increased availability of the sort of oxygen of which Mrs. Thatcher warned and on which
mass-mediated terrorism thrives. (24)
■ And terrorists are very much aware of this! Nothing proves this more than the Islamic
State, whose barbaric violence is topped only by its most advanced use of
communication technology to spread its brutal propaganda. (24)

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The Communication Calculus of
Terrorism
■ ISIS's "[V]ideos were of Hollywood caliber and proved that ISIS has Western-trained
experts in their midst. But the filmed execution of the burning Jordanian is not merely
longer but contrasts the uniformed, pale, somewhat removed from full earthly reality
ISIS jihadists with the very real, bright colored hostage as the fire slowly embraces and
kills him. One assumes that the filmmakers aimed at evoking images of heaven and hell-
effectively shot with different camera angles and frightening effects. (28)
■ Although the social media sites quickly blocked access to the videos and relatively few
people knew about the website that ISIS used to post the brutal clips, the world learned
almost instantly about the executions via the traditional mass media that in ever more
"breaking news" versions aired alarming details of the unspeakably cruel acts. (28)
■ "After careful consideration, we decided that giving readers of FoxNews.com the option
to see for themselves the barbarity of ISIS outweighed legitimate concerns about the
graphic nature of the video. Online users can choose to view or not view this disturbing
content." (28)

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The Communication Calculus of
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■ With all of those video releases, ISIS communication experts achieved the immediate
goals of their organization: getting the attention of publics and political elites around the
globe, shocking and threatening their foes, and impressing supporters and potential
recruits. (28)
■ Although the media had reported earlier about the beheadings of Muslims in Syria and
Iraq by ISIS fighters, it was the sight of Western victims that heightened the awareness
and outrage of political leaders and the general public in the U.S, UK, and elsewhere in
Western countries. (29)
■ Beheadings or what one ISIS operative labeled "demonstration killings" as the most
outlandish parts of the organization's comprehensive online propaganda elevated ISIS
into a global player and a headline maker that the world's most influential leaders would
not ignore. (30)

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■ "It is obvious that the media war in this century is one of the strongest methods; in
fact, its ratio may reach 90% of the total preparation for the battles." Bin Laden (30)
■ If publicity is indeed the oxygen or lifeblood of terrorism, as both terror ism scholars
and politicians have argued, ISIS's own propaganda apparatus and the traditional
media's frenzied coverage of the group's online postings were akin to providing
concentrated oxygen or massive blood transfusions to the group's quest for publicity
and propaganda. Indeed, ISIS had seemingly elevated mass-mediated terrorism to
an unprecedented level. (30-31).

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■ Mass-mediated terrorism…conveys the
centrality of communication via all kinds
of mass media in the calculus of
terrorism on the one hand and media
gatekeepers' preference for shocking
violence on the other hand. The idea here
is that most terrorists calculate the
consequences of their carefully planned
strikes and assume that they are very
likely to gain access to what I call the
triangle of political communication. (31-
32)

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■ Terrorists are well aware of the news value of lethal violence and of the media's,
especially television's appetite for horrific images. (33)
– Caller: Brother Abdul. The media is comparing your action to 9/11. One senior police officer has been killed.
– Abdul Rehman: We are on the lOth/11th floor. We have five hostages.
– Caller 2 (Kaja): Everything is being recorded by the media. Inflict the maxi mum damage. Don't be taken alive.
– Caller: Kill all hostages, except the two Muslims. Keep your phone switched on so that we can hear the gunfire.
– Fahadullah: We have three foreigners, including women. From Singapore and China.
– Caller: Kill them.
– (Voices of Fahadullah and Abdul Rehman directing hostages to stand in a line, and telling two Muslims to stand
aside. Sound of gunfire. Cheering voices in background). (34)

■ "September 11 was an even greater propaganda coup. It may be said that it broke a
record in propaganda dissemination" (Rubin and Rubin 2002, 274). Abu Ubeid al-
Qurashi, a leading al-Qaeda operative. (35)

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The Communication Calculus of
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■ Today the Internet hovers over,
circumvents, and connects with the
triangular mass communication model.
Instead of depending solely on traditional
media or traditional alternative media,
individuals and all kinds of groups and
organizations, including terrorists, have
now direct, easy, and fairly inexpensive
access to computer-aided
communication, most of all social media
networks. (36)

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The Communication Calculus of
Terrorism
■ Distinguishing between three forms of communication-interpersonal, mass communication, and
mass self-communication- Manuel Castells (2009, 55) points out that these three "coexist,
interact, and complement each other rather than substituting for one another." For Castells (2009,
302) the massive growth of mass self-communication and what he calls multimedia
communication networks offers social movements and insurgent politics greater opportunities "to
enter the public space from multiple sources." (36)
■ To summarize, then, while terrorists' ultimate objectives are by definition political, they have crucial
media—or communication—related goals. In particular, terrorists have the following communication-
related imperatives:
– Public Attention and Intimidation (38).
– Recognition of Grievances and Demands (38).
– Respect and Sympathy (39).
– A Degree of Legitimacy (40).

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■ "The very act of intending to kill hundreds in airplane and building explosions means they
[terrorists] seek sensational coverage for their deeds Like it or not, the media is still an integral part
of achieving the terrorist's aim-and therefore must be as judicious and responsible as possible in
its reportage" (Van Atta 1998, 68). (42)
■ Also, when terrorists do not claim responsibility for a particular act of political violence, they are
often aware that they will be recognized as the primary or only suspects and that the news media
will report on them and their motives. (43)
■ Accordingly, the Manual of the Afghan Jihad, used as a training guide for al-Qaeda's jihadists,
attests to the centrality of publicity considerations in the organization's operations and planning.
Thus, the manual recommends targeting "sentimental landmarks," such as the Statue of Liberty in
New York, Big Ben in London, and the Eiffel Tower in Paris, because their destruction "would
generate intense publicity with minimal ca sualties."19 In short, if at all possible, terrorists of all
ideologies and religions just like actors in the legitimate political process-want and need publicity.
"Propaganda by deed" (43)

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■ Simply by reporting spectacular and horrific terrorist incidents like the simultaneous
ones in Paris the mass media transmit powerful images that capture gestures of
behavioral symbolism. (45)
■ Communication scholars distinguish between communication as trans mission (of
messages typically to persuade the receiver) and communication as ritual with the
latter referring to the "sacred ceremony that draws persons together in fellowship
and communality" (Carey 1992, 17-18). However, there are also rituals of
excommunication that divide and separate communities rather than draw them
together (Carey 1998). While these concepts are typically applied to domestic
settings, they are equally useful in the transnational and global contexts, especially
in view of the advances in global communication technology. (45)

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■ Whether Osama bin Laden as head of al-Qaeda Central, Anwar al-Awlaki as
influential member of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), ISIS leader Abu
Bakr al-Baghdadi, other prominent terrorists, or their foot soldiers charged with
carrying out terrorist acts, their messages, symbols, and rituals are designed to unify
active members, supporters, and sympathizers while at the same time emphasizing
the existential gap between the community of jihadists and the infidels, their
enemies. (45)
■ In conclusion, then, terrorists rely on the communicative power of their violent acts.
Without publicity, a terrorist attack would be like the tree that falls down in the forest
without the press there to report. It would be as if the tree did not fall or, with
respect to terrorism, as if the strike never occurred. (46)

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