Reading an article or watching a televised report on a terrorist incident or organization is fortunately as close as most people come to witnessing or being directly confronted with these things. However, because the media commonly play a role not only in disclosing certain facts, but in shaping them in such a way that they are likely to be received in accordance with a particular perspective—and because the media can play a role in aiding or thwarting terrorist efforts—the role of media with respect to terrorism is not always straightforward. This paper will examine two newspaper articles that pertain to terrorism. The first is an example of media activity that arguably benefitted the terrorist organization. The second is one where the opposite occurred. After discussing differences between the two, the paper will conclude with a brief treatment of the role of social networking in facilitating or frustrating terrorist objectives.
Before proceeding, we can note that the essential dilemma the media faces is this: It has the function and responsibility of informing the world about what is happening, including terrorist activity; however, terrorism can thrive on world-awareness of what it is doing—in many cases, at least, it can only so survive. So the media must attempt to strike a balance between failing to inform its consumers about terrorist activity, on one hand, and giving the terrorists precisely what they want (typically, recognition and awareness of their causes), on the other.
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One way that the media can, usually inadvertently, aid a terrorist organization is by helping the latter to become better known around the world. A good example is an article that BBC ran several years ago entitled ‘Who are Hezbollah?’ (BBC 2010). The very title of this piece makes the relevant point. If Hezbollah were a well-known terrorist organization, it would scarcely be necessary to—and would not be profitable to—run a story with a title such as this one. While Hezbollah has been around for decades, it is relatively quiet and patient, as terrorist organizations go. It is a fairly small terrorist faction that is defined by its opposition to Israeli imperialism and aggression. Centered in Lebanon, the Shia Muslim group receives a good deal of its funding and arms from Iran.
This article does not of course promote Hezbollah, or its agenda. It simply describes what it is, where it came from, and where it is likely going next. In fact, with one exception that we will come to presently, the article is unusual among treatments of terrorist organizations precisely in its objectivity. It would be difficult indeed to find a similarly purely descriptive article on a Middle Eastern terrorist group in a United States’ newspaper. The exception is that the authors of the piece write at one point that “Washington has long branded Hezbollah a terrorist organization …” (BBC 2010). This might possibly be construed by some as minimally supporting Hezbollah, through at least leaving open the possibility that it is something other than a terrorist organization (for example, a group of freedom fighters; or simply a people defending itself against Israel). But this is a minor point. The article is a good example of how the media can inadvertently, and arguably unavoidably, help a terrorist organization by making it and its cause better known—all through simply doing its job.
On the other side, there are some pieces of journalism that actually serve to thwart the interests of terrorists. A fine example of this was the role that the media, including social media, played in finding the perpetrators of the recent terrorist bombing at the Boston Marathon. While it is not clear that any single piece was decisive here, we will focus on one in particular. Ford, Smith and Mcshane (2013) reported in the Daily News, which has a popular dedicated website, that the police were narrowing the search for suspects in the bombing. Although this article built upon existing coverage, much from social media sites such as Facebook and YouTube, it played itself a role in informing people about what was known about the location of the two suspects in the bombing. Aside from informing the reader about the nature of the crime, including the nearly 200 people who were injured (with 3 killed), the article describes what is known about the location of the single suspect who evaded capture for a time. It is worth noting, as the article does, that even the police were aided in their investigation by information that derived from social media.
This brings us to our final question. What is the role of social networking as it relates to the topics of aiding and thwarting terrorists? As the second article makes clear, in some cases the immediacy of the availability of information, including images, from social networking sites marks a drastic change from the old days when it was days or at least many hours before a news story could be circulated and read or watched. Obviously it made a difference that the attack was carried out in a large U.S. city, rather than (for example) the Middle East—this made it possible for the many witnesses, and those who had taken footage of the race itself, or the ensuing chaos, to have their information more-or-less immediately checked. But as smart phones become ubiquitous in the coming years or decades this proximity factor will become less important. In addition to the ability instantly to make information available to a wide audience, sites like Facebook and YouTube (to take only two of the most prominent) largely erase national borders, and make it possible for people the world over to become informed almost instantly after a relevant incident. These two factors seem to be the most important of those involved in social networking sites’ (or social media’s) consequences for terrorism.
- BBC (2010). Who are Hezbollah? BBC News, 4 July. news.bbc.co.uk
- Ford, B., Smith, G., and Mcshane L. (2013). Police narrow in on two suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings. Daily News, 18 April. http://www.nydailynews.com
