Page 189 - An Introduction to Political Communication Fifth Edition

Intro to Politics Communication (5th edn)-p.qxp 9/2/11 10:55 Page 168

COMMUNICATING POLITICS
without habitual access to news-making use these characteristics of
the news value system to obtain access.
(1982, p. 217)

They add that terrorism is ‘violence for effect. It is theatre. It is crime and
it is politics. This three-fold confluence of real life-and-death spectacle, high
politics and base crime fits so well into what the Western media is condi-
tioned to cover that they cannot resist giving it full exposure’ (ibid., p. 76).
Like all the other forms of political communication discussed in this book,
terrorism can have significance as a communicative act only if it is trans-
mitted through the mass media to an audience. Unless it is reported, the
terrorist act has no visibility, and thus no social meaning. David Paletz
observes that ‘terrorists seek publicity to bring about their psychological
goals . . . they use violence to produce various psychological effects –
demoralising their enemies, demonstrating their movement’s strength, gain-
ing public sympathy, and creating fear and chaos. To succeed in these goals,
terrorists must publicise their actions’ (Paletz and Schmid, 1992, p. 2).
Pickard in turn notes that terrorist acts ‘have been strategically used to help
turn the public’s attention towards problems that aggrieved groups wish to
have attention focused upon’ (1989, p. 21).
In addition to the general aim of generating publicity for a political
objective, terrorist acts may be intended to fulfil a number of more specific
purposes (Gerrits, 1992). They may, for example, be organised in such a way
as to demonstrate the vulnerability of the state. The assassination by the Irish
National Liberation Army (INLA) in 1978 of Lord Mountbatten was such
an act, as was the bombing of the Conservative Party conference in Brighton
in 1984 by the Irish Republican Army and that same organisation’s 1991
mortar attack on the Cabinet as it met in Downing Street. The casualties and
narrow escapes occasioned by these acts were symbolic reminders to the
British people of the reach of groups who were, according to the official line,
unrepresentative criminal thugs.
Terrorist groups may use these acts to communicate to their own
supporters. In the aforementioned examples of Irish republican terrorism, one
may argue that non-republicans in Britain, including those with a dislike and
even hatred for the then Conservative government, would not have welcomed
the death and destruction caused by, for example, the Brighton bomb. To their
own supporters, however, the IRA were attacking a legitimate target, with a
professionalism and devastating impact which would certainly have enhanced
their status within their own community. Related to this, terrorist acts may
be used to signify the ‘heroism’ of the perpetrators. The suicide bombings, or
‘martyrdom’ operations, carried out by Hezbollah in Lebanon in the 1980s
against US and other Western targets fell into this category, as have the suicide
bombings unleashed by Palestinians against civilians in Israel. The September
11, 2001 attacks by members of the al-Quaida network were intended to send

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