What determines news coverage and how does it apply to terrorism?
The idea that terrorism is PR and journalism has a dramaturgical quality is an idea with a long history, but also a history made extraordinarily relevant with the attacks in the US on September 11th 2001, resulting in the epic, metaphorical – and also – fall of the Twin Towers on Manhattan, New York. Dramaturgy implies drama, but also staging. This having been said, we are reminded every day that the relationship between the media and terrorist organizations is complex, evolving, problematic and not about to change any time soon. The “staging” part is perhaps what is hardest to grasp. A quick look on the various debates and lectures found on the internet, and one concludes that a prevailing view is to look at terrorism as an aspect of PR÷ public relations.
One of the effects of 50-75 years with media studies is a deeper awareness of these relationships that exist between public opinion, media attention and political violence. The classic domain of political communication is very much alive, reflecting a steady flow of new ideas concerning the impact of the media on society, on public opinion, and political culture. As new media, new genres and new media cultures emerge, one expects theories and analytical traditions to reflect that change.
Even so, studies of journalism and political violence retain a remarkable lineage back to the emergence of political communication as a field. In the 35-odd years that I have been an active student of the media, the body of literature in the area has grown immensely. The number of journals has grown. The number of journalism researchers has grown. The relevance of the topic seems to have grown. Concepts and ideas have entered into every day language that were previously the domain of students of culture and literature – like the concepts of drama and narrative.
A short version may serve to help us distinguish between:
- News coverage explained as the function of how journalists work
- New coverage explained as a function of the societal interests of the media
- News coverage explained as a function of ideologies and hegemonic thinking
- News studied from the point of view of how it frames events
- News studies from the point of view that they are in fact narratives
- News studies from the semiotic point of view of how language establishes meaning
- News studies from the point of view of popular culture.
The study if terrorism as one particular brand of political communication is no exception. However, I did not expect just a decade back that terrorism would be as central to real life political communication as it now is.
It is sometime said that the world was a more dangerous place before. I am not sure whether it is true, and what the best empirical standards for comparing “then and now” would be. But I tend to think that the world feels like a more dangerous place these days. Generally, uncertainty is at a height. And how one understands terrorism as a particular kind of media strategy in political communication is very much an aspect of the context one choses to place it within.
Case in point: A simple Google search in August 2016 rendered 39 million hits on the theme ‘terrorism and the media’. A search for scholarly work ended with 789 ooo hits. I will not say I have ready many of these, of course. I am not so sure it would matter. I have read quite a few books on the subject, and a steady flow of news material over the years. The Google numbers are abstract numbers. On the whole, what the numbers show is how the big change in our understanding of media and power is, as a phenomenon. Before we can reflect on the number, let us remember that only a few years ago we would not have been able to conduct the search, in the first place.
Numbers also reflect the way in which the in which media workers themselves talk about terrorism as media content material. And they, too, google.
Background on a Saturday: What you can find on the internet
A normal Saturday morning the idea of ‘terrorism and the media’ is only a click or two away. So I thought I’d do a quick blogpost on it. Then I do.
And here is the thing: You’d be surprised at the frequency of images related to Donald Trump during a simple query of media and terrorism. I might ask what that means? Evidence of what? Anything? There are cartoons by the mile, and photos: You could spend a life time collecting them off the Internet. If you wanted to. Models and figures from research, as well. A lot of reflecting ideas we already had in the 1970’s, or before.
All I know is that the maps of the world are changing, that simple solutions do not work and that a key explanation of contemporary political violence in the world is inseparable from the actions of the George W. Bush presidential regime in the United States – a truly terrible approach to foreign policy. So ponder the question why it is that Donald Trump is the name showing up – Internet searches are rather undependable things. They favor the present, and Google as well as the others already have a pattern on how you search.
A few more items to sort out the fact of the search variation: The way my computer is set up it automatically lists search queries from Yahoo. They are not so convincing, often. The first ones coming up are advertisements, although they look like they are not. And there are evidently 22 million hits on the issue of media and terrorism.
An identical search with Google renders the double, and the order of hits are different. The Google version is more precise. In a different blog post I will want to come back to the contents of the academic search, as well.
Finding what you want
In all the multitude, the information surplus, the repetitions, and the not so important – you tend to find what you look for, if you know what to look for: About two pages down on my Google search, I find David Altheide, a well known scholar, who writes:
Mediated fear is changing civilizations. Significant forces involve a combination of technological and social changes that shape and are shaped by the context that rockets them forvward. The politics of everyday life incorporate the discourse of fear and mass mediated performance of symbolic (and forceful) interventions from threats, cincluding terrorism, crime and environmental catastrophe. It all begs for risk management. I argue that fundamental media and information technology changes are responsible for the craziness that now defines American politics, our major institutions, and everyday life as it has been essentially orhganized since WWII … .
Finally
Then I go for YouTube, and you’d be surprised there, too. 782 000 hits. Here is one of them. More later:
http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHwYNKq60tA
Noam Chomsky on media attention, and terrorism
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPQ1-Tj4E8E
Finally, a debate from the Kent University School of Journalism and Mass Communication