Page 207 - An Introduction to Political Communication Third Edition

COMMUNICATING POLITICS

which is no less true of terrorism. The audience sees the bomb
exploding or the hijacker waving his gun from the cockpit of an
aircraft, but will not very often be provided with the historical
background or political context to the events taking place, and their
justification (if any). Kelly and Mitchell acknowledge that ‘the
media will help [the terrorist] attract the attention of an audience
but it will not let him transmit his message. By sapping terrorism of
its political content, the media turn the crusader into a psychopath’
(1984, p. 287). For these reasons, much media coverage of terror-
ism may be viewed as self-defeating.
As noted above, one goal of terrorist activity may be to provoke
state repression or to demoralise a population and force a change in
policy. Media coverage can provide success in these terms, as the
Provisional IRA and others have shown. Kelly and Mitchell are
correct, however, to assert that no media system will provide
terrorism against its own state with legitimation. For the establish-
ment, moreover, even publicity is frowned upon. When in 1985
the British Home Secretary warned journalists against providing
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Irish Republican terrorists with the ‘oxygen of publicity’ he was
implying that any coverage of such activities – negative or otherwise
– was harmful to the mainstream political process. In so far as
coverage of spectacular terrorist acts assists the groups responsible
to shape the political agenda, he was probably correct. Media
organisations, however, have been reluctant to censor themselves on
these grounds, arguing that denial or avoidance of the issues which
generate terrorism is – apart from being an unacceptable restriction
of the media’s fourth estate role – ultimately counter-productive to
the resolution of those issues.

Further reading
For post-September 11 background on al-Quaida and Islamic
terrorism see Peter Berger’s Holy War, Inc (2001).

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