Terrorism andas communication

1
Terrorism and/as communication

• History of terrorism
• Definition of terrorism
• Propaganda by the deed
• Terrorism and media
• Media as magnifier
• Media as accomplice
• Media as problem

2
Invention of terrorism

• Etymological root
• Derived from Latin language verbs terrere (to
  tremble) and deterrere (to frighten from)
• 1st century
• Zealot terror campaign against the Roman
  occupiers of the eastern Mediterranean.
• Targeting rich Jewish collaborators and others
  who were friendly to the Romans.
• 11th century
• Assassins (radical Islamic sect)
• Employing systematic murder for a cause they
  believed to be righteous.
• For two centuries, they resisted efforts to
  suppress their religious beliefs
• Developed ritualized murder into a fine art
  taught through generations.
• Political aims were achieved through the power of
  intimidation.

3
Terror and virtue

• 18th century
• Coining of the term terrorism during French
  Revolution
• Jacobin party establishing its regime de
  terreur (May 1793 - July 1794)
• Without, all the tyrants encircle you within,
  all tyrannys friends conspire they will
  conspire until hope is wrestled from crime. We
  must smother the internal and external enemies of
  the Republic or perish with it now in this
  situation, the first maxim of your policy ought
  to be to lead the people by reason and the
  peoples enemies by terror. If the spring of
  popular government in time of peace is virtue,
  the springs of popular government in revolution
  are at once virtue and terror virtue, without
  which terror is fatal terror, without which
  virtue is powerless. Terror is nothing other than
  justice, prompt, severe, inflexible it is
  therefore an emanation of virtue it is not so
  much a special principle as it is a consequence
  of the general principle of democracy applied to
  our countrys most urgent needs. (Maximilien
  Robespierre, Report upon the Principles of
  Political Morality Which Are to Form the Basis of
  the Administration of the Interior Concerns of
  the Republic, 1794)

4
Anarchism and terrorism

• 19th century
• Russian anarchists
• Emerging from intelligentsia
• Impatient with slow reform of Tsarist state
• Developed the use of terror into a systematic
  tool to achieve specific social goals
• Culminating in assassination of Tsar Alexander II
  in 1881 (involving Lenins elder brother)
• Sergey Nechaev (Catechism of the Revolutionist,
  1869), defined 21 principles the revolutionary or
  terrorist must be guided by
• These included full committment to the
  revolution no ties to civil order only goal is
  destruction no friendships no pity viewing the
  target society itself as foul and evil per se
  something that must be destroyed
• Mikhail Bakunin (1869)
• nature of Russian banditry terrorism is cruel
  and ruthless yet no less cruel and ruthless is
  that governmental might which has brought this
  kind of bandit terrorist into being by its
  wanton acts. Governmental cruelty has
  engendered the cruelty of the people and made it
  into something necessary and natural. But between
  these two cruelties, there still remains a vast
  difference the first strives for the complete
  annihilation of the people, the other endeavors
  to set them free.
• Fenian Brotherhood
• Irish-American group
• Planted explosive devices around the city of
  London
• Widely understood as first occurrence of
  'republican Terrorism'

5
Typology of terrorist groups

• 20th century
• Nationalist movements
• Zionists
• ANC
• IRA
• ETA
• Revolutionary movements
• Urban Guerilla in Latin America
• Red Army Faction (Baader-Meinhof Group), West
  Germany 1970s-80s
• Red Brigades (Italy)
• Religious fundamentalists
• Hizbollah (Lebanon)
• Hamas (Palestine)
• Al Qaida
• Miscellaneous groups
• Militant anti-abortionists
• Militant animal rights campaigners
• Eco-terrorists
• Before 1990s terrorist groups predominantly
  secular

6
Theoretical definitions

• Walter Laqueur
• "the only general characteristic generally agreed
  upon is that terrorism involves violence and the
  threat of violence."
• "Terrorism constitutes the illegitimate use of
  force to achieve a political objective when
  innocent people are targeted."
• Bruce Hoffman
• All terrorist acts involve violence or the
  threat of violence. Terrorism is specifically
  designed to have far-reaching psychological
  effects it is meant to instil fear within, and
  thereby intimidate, a wider target audience
  that might include a rival ethnic or religious
  group, an entire country, a national government
  or political party, or public opinion in general.
  Terrorism is designed to create power where there
  is none or to consolidate power where there is
  very little. Through the publicity generated by
  their violence, terrorists seek to obtain the
  leverage, influence and power they otherwise lack
  to effect political change on either a local or
  an international scale. (Inside terrorism.
  London Indigo, 1999)
• Igor Primoratz
• purposeful coercive intimidation (What is
  terrorism?, Journal of Applied Philosophy, vol.
  7 (1990), pp. 129-138)

7
Political definitions

• U.S. State Department
• premeditated, politically motivated violence
  perpetrated against non-combatant targets by
  subnational groups or clandestine agents, usually
  intended to influence an audience
• F.B.I.
• the unlawful use of force or violence against
  persons or property to intimidate or coerce a
  government, the civilian population, or any
  segment thereof, in furtherance of political or
  social objectives
• U.S. Defence Department
• the unlawful use of or threatened use of
  force or violence against individuals or property
  to coerce or intimidate governments or societies,
  often to achieve political, religious, or
  ideological objectives

8
Terrorism as a form of political violence

• Violence the unlawful use of force
• Other forms of political violence include
  political assassination, guerilla warfare also
  possibly war, civil war, ethnic cleansing, race
  hate crimes
• Can also be understood as a form of political
  crime, a concept which would include, for
  example, treason
• Important criteria that are used to define
  terrorism
• Deliberate targeting of civilian population
  (non-combatants)
• Violence is symbolic, i.e. meant to achieve
  larger political, social, religious goals
  (immediate targets are functional)
• Aims
• To spread fear in the target population
  (terrorising)
• To provoke disproportionate reaction from states
  (to generate support amongst sympathisers)
• Generally no interest in controlling territory

9
Propaganda by the deed

• Three Italian anarchists (Errico Malatesta, Carlo
  Cafiero and Emilio Covelli) conceived and
  developed the idea of Propaganda by Deed through
  a series of letters to each other between July
  and October 1876
• the Italian Federation (of the International)
  believes that insurrection, reinforcing socialist
  principles through deeds, is the most effective
  means of propaganda and is also the only
  means of reaching the lowest social classes and
  to involve these strongly alive forces of mankind
  in the struggle of the International (Malatesta,
  1876)
• The propaganda of the idea is a chimera. Ideas
  result from deeds, not the latter from the
  former, and the people will not be free when they
  are educated, but educated when they are free.
  (Pisacane, Italian Anarchist)
• By actions which compel general attention, the
  new idea seeps into peoples minds and wins
  converts. One such act may, in a few days, make
  more propaganda than thousand pamphlets. Above
  all, it awakens the spirit of revolt. . .
  (Kropotkin, Russian Anarchist)
• The great thing about anarchist vengeance is
  that it proclaims loud and clear for everyone to
  hear, that this man or that man must die for
  this and this reason . Once such action has been
  carried out, the important thing is that the
  world learns of it from the revolutionaries, so
  that everyone knows what the position is . In
  order to achieve the desired success
  immediately after the action has been carried
  out, especially in the town where it took place,
  posters should be put up setting out the reasons
  for the action in such a way as to draw from them
  the best possible benefit. (Johann Most, German
  Anarchist, 1885)
• If the question is, is it possible to bring
  about liberation by means of terror? The answer
  is No! If the question is, do these actions help
  to bring liberation nearer? The answer is Yes!
  Terror is not aimed at persons, but at
  representatives and is therefore effective. And
  if it also shakes the population out of its
  complacency, so much the better. (Lohamei Herut
  Yisrael (Lehi), Fighters for the Freedom of
  Israel, 1943)

10
Terrorism and political communication

• Violence, propaganda, and terrorism
• Violence aims at behaviour modification by
  coercion. Propaganda aims at the same by
  persuasion. Terrorism can be seen as a
  combination of the two. Terrorism, by using
  violence against one victim, seeks to coerce and
  persuade others. The immediate victim is merely
  instrumental, the skin on a drum beaten to
  achieve a calculated impact on a wider audience.
  (Schmid 2004)
• Terrorist communication strategy
• Not attacking the state directly
• But revealing the impotence of state authorities
  to provide security through assassinations,
  hostage taking, hijacking, suicide bombings, etc.
• Communicating through singular acts of violence
  more general feeling of insecurity
• Being terrorized is embodied in the revealed
  potential of becoming victimized
• Publicizing political, social, religious cause
  (e.g. Beslan school hostage crisis, leading to
  increased media coverage about Chechnya)

11
Media as magnifier

• This temporary presence of the terrorist then
  perpetuates itself through media coverage,
  rumours and speculation and gains a longevity it
  could not generate by itself. (Schmid 2004)
• the success of a terrorist operation depends
  almost entirely on the amount of publicity it
  receives (Walter Laqueur, 1977)
• Media relaying the terrorist message to target
  audience
• Global media also serving to reinforce support
  amongst sympathisers

12
Media as accomplice

• Terrorist attacks fit criteria of newsworthiness
  (negativity, deviance, sensationalism, visuality)
• Principles of terrorist propaganda strategy
• Terrorist acts should be aimed at the audience,
  the general public
• Victims should be chosen for their symbolic
  meaning
• The media are eager to cover terrorist violence
• The media can be activated, directed, and
  manipulated for propagandistic effect and
• Governments are at a disadvantage because their
  only choice is between censorship and letting
  terrorists make use of their media. (Carlos
  Marighella, Manual of the Urban Guerrilla,1970)
• Terrorist attacks as pseudo-events (not unlike
  campaign stunts)
• Without being noticed, in fact, terrorism would
  not exist. The sheer act of killing does not
  create a terrorist act murders and willful
  assaults occur with such frequency in most
  societies that they are scarcely reported in the
  news media. What makes an act terrorism is that
  it terrifies. The acts to which we assign that
  label are deliberate events, bombings and attacks
  performed at such places and times that they are
  calculated to be observed. Terrorism without its
  horrified witnesses would be as pointless as a
  play without an audience. (M. Juergensmeyer,
  Terror in the Mind of God. The Global Rise of
  Religious Violence. Berkeley University of
  California Press 2000)

13
Mutual interests

• The advent of modern mass media is not an
  underlying cause of the proliferation of
  terrorism
• Symbiotic relationship
• Gaining publicity through providing drama
• Complicity despite adversarial relationship
• Mass media typically biased against terrorists
• Either because associating themselves with
  political system, almost as democratic
  institution
• Or because of human interest reporting, focusing
  on human suffering, offering (cynical?)
  compassion
• Terrorists typically regard media as cynical,
  typical of (Western or capitalist) moral decay
• Free and competitive media systems maximize
  coverage of terrorism
• Possible explanation for increased frequency of
  terrorist groups in democratic countries?

14
Media as problem

• Potentially undermining counter-terrorist
  activities
• By undermining (non)negotiating position of
  government through human interest focus on
  hostages
• By undermining secrecy and operational security,
  e.g. rendering rescue operations impossible
  because of permanent media presence