Page 191 - An Introduction to Political Communication Second Edition

AN INTRODUCTION TO POLITICAL COMMUNICATION

Lebanon in the 1980s against US and other Western targets fell into
this category.
Normally, of course, terrorist activity will shock and outrage the
community against which it is directed, generating a public response
which may suit the organisation’s objectives in so far as it radicalises
and polarises public opinion. The many IRA bomb attacks against
civilians in Britain were intended to generate public support for British
military and political withdrawal from Northern Ireland, a strategy
which has not been without success.
Terrorist activity may also be consciously designed to provoke
repressive counter-measures by the state, enabling the organisation
and the community whose interests it claims to represent to be
portrayed as victims. The IRA bombings of pubs in Birmingham in
the 1970s led both to the introduction of the Prevention of Terrorism
Act, and the miscarriages of justice experienced by the ‘Birmingham
Six’ and others. Both have generated much adverse publicity for the
British police and legal system. Similarly, the 1988 ban on broadcast
statements by supporters of republican violence such as Sinn Fein
generated much negative publicity for the British government, at
home and abroad.
To achieve these goals, terrorists must gain access to the media,
and in this they are assisted by the inherent newsworthiness of their
activities. Such acts are normally spectacular, providing journalists
with dramatic visual material. They are explosive (literally) and often
incorporate elements of great drama. The 1978 siege of the Iranian
embassy in London, and the holding of an American airline at Beirut
airport in 1985 are examples of unfolding dramas which commanded
headline news throughout their duration.
The grammar of television news, then, means that terrorism has
newsvalue, and can be used as a means of attracting media and thus
public attention to a political cause. In itself, however, publicity may
not further a political objective and may, for obvious reasons in the
case of terrorism, present an obstacle to it.
This fact requires terrorist organisations, like other political actors,
to engage in more sophisticated strategies of news management than
merely setting up spectacular acts of violence. Pickard argues that
‘labelling perpetrators of terrorism as seekers of publicity for its own
sake is simplistic and ignores their very significant efforts to direct
news coverage, to present their cause in favourable ways and to
disassociate groups from acts that will bring significant negative
response to the cause’ (1989, p.14).

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