Mass-Mediated Terrorism

Journal of Political and Military Sociology, Summer 2003 by Wasburn, Philo C

Mass-Mediated Terrorism by Brigitte L. Nacos. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002 (pp. 208 / $24.95 paper / $65.00 cloth)

Any reasonable understanding or normative evaluation of America's commercial news media must take into account the fact that they are, indeed, commercial. That is, they are for-profit and not pubic service organizations. In what ways and how well such organizations can and do manage to serve the public interest and sustain political democracy have been the subjects of countless studies. The vast majority of these have reached disappointing conclusions. Brigitte Nacos takes this line of inquiry one step further. In the case of their reporting on acts of terrorism, she asks whether media have actually produced social and political harm by advancing the interests of their perpetrators.

Like other media analysts, Nacos observes that, in their ceaseless quest for large audiences and thereby increasing advertising revenue and corporate profit, media have continued to blur their distinction between news and entertainment. Acts of political violence are particularly well suited for presentation and infotainment and are given massive amounts of attention. In their time, Theodore Kaczynski, Timothy McVeigh, and Osama Bin Laden were treated as celebrities and presented extraordinary opportunities to make their case in the public spheres. Media largely ignored organizations protesting globalization, government and corporate indifference to environmental degradation, and the violation of animal rights until some individuals associated with these groups (or believed to be associated with them) engaged in dramatic acts of civil disobedience. Such behavior received substantial coverage. However, reporting tended to focus on the acts and undermine the legitimacy of the organizations and the issues raised.

Mass media terrorism is the "propaganda of deed." The concept refers to acts of political violence against noncombatants/innocents that are essentially acts of political communication. For the terrorist, it is the message that matters, not the victim. Perpetrators of political violence seek vast news coverage of their deeds that capture the attention of citizens and political leaders not only in targeted countries, but throughout the world. To insure the greatest possible news coverage, terrorists go out of their way to provide the media with cruel, shocking, and frightening images. "Terrorists are particularly successful in exploiting the links between the ass media, public opinion, and governmental decision making" (ix).

The terms terrorism and terrorist are notoriously vague, ambiguous, and pejorative. Nacos observes that the media have used them inconsistently. For example, the bombing in Atlanta's Olympic Park during the 1996 Olympic games was referred to as terrorism, but bombings of abortion clinics were labeled crimes. In some contexts, state sponsored political violence against civilian populations were labeled terrorism, in other settings violations of human rights, and in yet other situations generally unintended collateral damage. Media choices of terminology generally reflect the interests of government officials.

Nacos's definition of mass mediated terrorism as "political violence against non-combatants/innocents that is committed with the intentions to publicize the deed, to gain publicity and thereby public and government attention" (p. 17) nicely avoids many difficulties associated with the uses of terrorist and terrorism and is consistent with prominent conceptual approaches found in the vast literature.

Using vivid case studies of the reporting of 9-11, the Oklahoma City bombing, Palestinian suicide bombings in Israel, and European hostages held in the Philippines in the summer of 2000, among several others, Nacos portrays how purveyors of political violence have exploited not only commercial news media but also the full range of modes of electronic communication. The cases well illustrate her contention that the media are terrorism's "oxygen." They also suggest how citizen and government reactions to the dramatic and extensive presentations can help undermine democratic values. Mass Mediated Terrorism concludes with a set of recommendations intended to reduce the media's inadvertent support of terrorists' objectives while keeping the public accurately informed, remaining committed to free, independent reporting and other civil liberties, and helping authorities, crisis managers, and response professionals deal with occurrences of political violence and their often devastating consequences.

Nacos's clear conceptualization of mass mediated terrorism has considerable analytic utility for research in political communication. Her case studies are engrossing. However, much of the book's content is well known. The work would have advanced understanding of the subject matter considerably had it fully analyzed the sometimes subtle ways in which media presentations have worked against terrorists' interests by evoking sympathy for victims and producing widespread hostility toward the terrorists and their causes.