Feature Article

Mass-mediated Terrorism in the Infotainment Era

By Nadia Canosa Gunduc

November 9, 2009: Muslim militants beheaded a school principal on a remote southern island in the Philippines after holding him for three weeks. October 30, 2009: attacks by insurgents killed 12 people in eastern and southern Afghanistan, nine travelers in a station wagon, including a woman and a child, were killed. September 18, 2009: at least 35 people were killed by a suicide car bomb attack in a Shiite village in northwest Pakistan. October 25, 2009: two synchronized suicide car bombings struck at the heart of the Iraqi government leaving at least 155 dead and about 500 wounded strewn across crowded downtown streets -- it was the deadliest coordinated attack in Iraq since the summer of 2007. These randomly selected New York Times articles are vivid examples of mass-mediated terrorism, sharing certain similarities. First, the acts were carried out by terrorist organizations against noncombatants or innocent people. Second, they were carefully planned, timed, and orchestrated. Third, the acts were visually extreme and psychologically appalling. Finally, they were all a communication act.

As Brigitte L. Nacos in the opening chapter of her book Mass-Mediated Terrorism put it: mass-mediated terrorism is political violence against noncombatants / innocents that is committed with the intention to publicize the deed, to gain publicity and thereby public and government attention. Terrorist organizations have long been using media to disseminate their messages, communicate their concerns, and send signals to enemies and allies. For terrorists, media acts as a ‘force multiplier’ because through media attention they achieve a presence, status, and power they don’t deserve. The media disseminates images or writes about the destruction and killings the actions or attacks have caused – or even the potential damage they may be able to inflict in the future. This, in turn, creates fear, anxiety, and polarization in the public, and eventually forces the government to act. Therefore, even if they don’t sympathize with the terrorist organizations, the media actively contribute to the terrorists’ propaganda objectives.

Media coverage of terrorist attacks follows certain key patterns. For example, media devotes extensive coverage to a given attack or incident. It also tends to adopt the government’s terrorism rhetoric ("insurgents," etc). Finally, news of terrorist activities exhibit a regional bias, primarily focusing on the Middle East and Asia, which are nowadays the regions most covered by the mass media.

The question is why would media facilitate terrorist propaganda? One of the reasons is simple: because it is financially rewarding. Media organizations are constantly competing for their audiences and the financial compensations associated with a high volume of advertisements. The bigger the audience, the more advertisements. The news media corporations know how to grasp an audience’s attention: by showing visually striking images of drama, grief, destruction, panic, fear and tragedy. News media respond to dramatic bad news instantly because they strive to provide to their audiences with new information, filled with more excitement and entertainment than their competitors. Nacos states that twenty-first century news media can be categorized as infotainment: a blend between “hard” information and “soft” entertainment. The drama of terrorism fits the infotainment mold.

Unwittingly, media is acting as a terrorist tool because it is contributing to spread the terrorists’ message instantly and efficiently. Regretfully, the media coverage seems to fit more within a dichotomized model of “villains – heroes,” leaving audiences very much in an ignorant state because it doesn’t help them to understand the complexities, reasons, and possible solutions behind a terrorist act.